Picasso Paradox

Pablo Picasso is not only a famous artist whose works sell for enormous sums but he was also one of the most prolific workers ever. Living into his 90’s, Picasso created over 50,000 works. That an artist who has so many works extant can still be so pricey is a testament to three things. First, intrinsic quality and popularity. Second, the great number of people interested in art. And third, the importance of art museums in taking works off sale and increasing the value of the work that is available to collectors. Never underestimate the value of art museums in increasing the value of art work. Most of the work of popular artists is tied up in museums resulting in a much smaller pool of their work available on the open market. The list of the world’s hundred most popular art museums doesn’t list any in Philadelphia and yet there are over twenty art museums in my area alone. To imagine that there are ten thousand decent art museums world wide all of which would love to have Picassos is not out of the question. Imagine for a minute that Philately had the popularity of fine art and that there were thousands of philatelic museums competing for US number ones and twos. Imagine what taking a thousand or so of all the world’s better earlier issues off the market would do to stamp prices. Given that so few fine stamps are in museums the wonder is that stamp prices are as firm and as high as they are. And our hobby is one of the few where collectors don’t have to compete with museums for fine items for their collections.