Children’s Art, Adult Prices : Every Picture Tells A Story gallery on La Brea displays and sells art from contemporary children’s books
The originals of world-famous contemporary art--paintings that have been reproduced thousands, even hundreds of thousands of times--are hanging on the walls of a new gallery on La Brea. Unless you have children, you probably have never seen them.
The Every Picture Tells A Story gallery deals exclusively in art from contemporary children’s books.
“When kids come in here it’s amazing for them to see something like King Bidgood in the original,” said Lois Sarkisian, 32, co-owner of the gallery that opened Oct. 29. Hanging near her is “Today We Lunch in the Tub,” a whimsical work by painter Don King of jolly King Bidgood enjoying an enormous lunch while taking a bath.
“The kids are in awe when they see it,” she said. “It’s like us seeing a van Gogh for the first time.”
“One nice thing about this business,” said co-owner Abbie Phillips, 36, with a laugh, “is that when you go home at night you have no trouble talking to the kids about work.”
As much as children might like Every Picture Tells A Story, the setting is very adult. The art is hung tastefully on white walls and illuminated by track lighting. The floor space is open and the furnishings minimal.
It looks like almost every other gallery in the La Brea/Melrose area, except that the content of the paintings are dancing dogs, frolicking ants, menacing wizards and idealized scenes from childhood.
“We very much wanted this gallery to be in a fine art area,” Sarkisian said, “because we believe this is fine art. We didn’t want it to be cute, we didn’t want it to be childlike in any way.”
The gallery exists, however, because three years ago Phillips had a child.
“I was trained as a biologist, but after my first child was born I became more interested in children’s books,” she said. “I always loved the books, I loved to teach about them.”
Turning her love of the books into a part-time profession, she began to speak to groups about children’s books. “I gave talks to parents, teachers, divorced fathers, peace groups, that sort of thing. I would tell them about the ones I liked and why.” After the talk she would sell the books, which she had bought at wholesale prices. “It was sort of the Tupperware idea,” she said.
Her timing was good. Before the 1980s, children’s books were a backwater for the big publishers. The most popular books had longevity in the marketplace, but the sales figures were comparatively small and they were slow to realize a profit.
All that changed with the baby boom, the increase in two-income families and greater attention from publishers on the marketing of children’s books. Higher prices did not prove to be an obstacle--Chris Van Allsburg’s “The Polar Express” has sold more than a million copies since it was introduced in 1984, despite its $16.95 price tag.
Phillips noticed that customers were responding as much to the quality of the books’ art as their texts. “People were saying they would love to have an original piece of art from them in their homes,” she said.
She discussed it with Sarkisian, who was an interior designer when they met through a mutual friend two years ago. They formed a partnership to continue Phillips’ book business while they began to contact children’s book illustrators, usually through publishers, to see if they could represent the artist.
Most of the artists had never been previously contacted by art dealers about selling their work. “It was a surprise,” said Lambert Davis, a La Jolla painter who uses water-based acrylics to make warm, realistic images. He has illustrated “Jolly Mon,” a book written by songwriter Jimmy Buffet and “The Bells of Christmas,” a story by Virginia Hamilton about a black family at the turn of the century. “I had sold a couple of the paintings myself, but when they called it was the first time I had been approached to sell in a gallery.”
Phillips and Sarkisian had their first show in November, 1988, at the Alexander Gallery in Studio City, which included the paintings of Van Allsburg, the reigning king of children’s book illustrators. “It would be hard to have a show without Van Allsburg’s work in it,” Sarkisian said. “When people think about serious art for children’s books, they think of him.”
His “Polar Express” was so popular that it gave the field new respect--his work was seriously profiled in numerous magazines--and brought it into new realms on the financial front. For his most recent book, a version of “Swan Lake,” he and writer Mark Helprin split an advance of $801,000, a previously unheard of amount for a children’s book.
The first show was a success, and Phillips and Sarkisian went on to sponsor exhibits in several other cities.
“We proved that the response for the artwork was there,” Sarkisian said. “We eventually felt the business had grown to the point where we could have a gallery of our own.”
“The art needed a home,” Phillips said.
Every Picture Tells a Story opened with a show of paintings by Barry Moser. “I think he is a pre-eminent watercolorist,” Sarkisian said. “And the subject matter is familiar.” Moser has most recently illustrated several sets of Uncle Remus stories in books called “Jump,” “Jump Again” and “Jump On Over” with texts by Van Dyke Parks, based on the Joel Chandler Harris originals. He has also illustrated editions of “Tom Sawyer” and “Alice in Wonderland.”
The current show at the gallery centers on Richard Jessie Watson’s egg tempera paintings used in his retelling of “Tom Thumb,” set in medieval times. The show also includes paintings by Davis from “The Bells of Christmas”; black and white etchings by Arthur Geisart from “The Ark” and “Pigs From A To Z”; classic storybook-style paintings by Michael Hague from an edition of “The Wizard of Oz”; watercolors by Ted Rand for Edward Lear’s classic nonsense poem “The Jumblies”; and paintings from Van Allsburg’s “Two Bad Ants,” in which the painter shows household scenes from an ant’s viewpoint.
The prices for the artwork are anything but childlike. The center-spread painting from Watson’s “Tom Thumb” is $7,000. Van Allsburg’s “Two Bad Ants” paintings range in price from $5,500 to $6,400. Paintings from “Under the Sunday Tree” by Amos Ferguson, a 90-year-old artist who works in a primitive style, sell for $6,000.
“We set the prices in consultation with the artist,” Sarkisian said. Most of the paintings in the gallery sell for about $1,000, with etchings and working drawings generally going for less. The least expensive piece now in the gallery is a small Geisart etching for $75.
“The price has to do with whether their books have been bestsellers,” she said. “And awards are a factor.”
The most prestigious award in children’s book illustration is the annual Caldecott Medal (Van Allsburg has won two.) But others are important. Sarkisian said that Richard Watson’s prices are higher than some partly because his first book, “Bronwen the Traw and the Shape-Shister,” with text by James Dickey, won the Parents’ Choice Award.
“The quality of the work is important too, of course,” she said. “There was an incredible reaction to ‘Tom Thumb’ as soon as it came out. It is a very popular book. It’s beautiful and has an emotional content.”
Buyers seem to agree. As of last week, 11 of the 20 Watson paintings on display, including the $7,000 center spread from “Tom Thumb,” were sold.
Sarkisian said that in the first two months of business they sold about $220,000 worth of artwork at the gallery, far beyond their expectations.
“We have been surprised a bit by who is buying,” Sarkisian said. “We expected people with a lot of expendable income and people looking for a bargain in art for investment purposes. But we are also getting a lot of teachers, parents with children, young single people who just fall in love with the art and are willing to save their dollars until they can buy a piece.
“We are getting more emotionally based purchases than I would have expected, and that is just great as far as I am concerned.”
She said that people who did buy for investment purposes are already reaping the rewards, however. “We sold one of the King Bidgood paintings for $3,000. Now we have a list of people who want to be notified if the buyer is willing to sell. They are offering double what he paid just a few weeks ago.
“One of the artists called to thank us for starting the gallery. ‘Just by opening your door you raised my prices 50%,’ he said. I think that by putting this art in a gallery setting, it gives them the attention and respect they deserve.”
Every Picture Tells A Story is at 836 N. La Brea Ave. in Los Angeles. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays through Saturdays. For information, call 962-5420.
