Artists Enjoying ‘Green Period’
It’s fitting that the portrait of Salvador Dali hanging in artist Wyland’s Laguna Beach oceanfront studio is sporting a sly smile.
After all, Dali, whose penchant for self-promotion infuriated critics, probably would have appreciated the business machine that Wyland is revving up. The 41-year-old Detroit native has parlayed public fascination with whales and dolphins into a $40-million empire with 400 employees.
Now, he is busily pitching animated sea creatures to Hollywood moguls, signing licensing deals with surf-wear king Gotcha and building a 40-location retail gallery chain that stretches into the whale-bereft Midwest.
While dismissing the work as “good decoration, essentially,” Laguna Art Museum Director Bolton Colburn acknowledges that Wyland is “a whirlwind, a phenomenon. . . . It’s incredible that this guy has been able to build up this kind of empire.”
The “Whaling Wall” murals that Wyland has airbrushed on municipal buildings have made him one of Southern California’s most visible artists. But he is just one in a growing cadre who pay as much attention to marketing as they do to their palettes.
They are using the Internet, the Home Shopping Channel and lavish retail galleries to hawk a wide array of what one publicist describes as “art-inspired product.”
Industry experts set the retail value of prints alone at more than $400 million. But the cash register total would easily double or triple if framing costs, secondary market sales and art-related products are included.
Some of the leading artists are:
* San Jose-based painter Thomas Kinkade, who has trade-marked his “Painter of Light” sobriquet, co-founded a public company that trades under the ARTS ticker symbol on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
* Terry Redlin recently built a $10-million museum in his hometown of Watertown, S.D.--complete with lecture hall, gift shop and office space--to showcase his Americana oil paintings.
* Painter Bev Doolittle, who works from her home near Palm Springs, recently introduced a limited edition print titled “Music in the Wind,” a portrait of an American Indian woman in a forest that had a 43,500-unit press run. Her prints retail for $330 and her publisher expects gross revenue to top $25 million as collectors spend freely for lavish frames.
* Carmel-based artist Will Bullas’ product list has grown rapidly beyond paintings and prints to incorporate refrigerator magnets, tote bags, plush animals and day books.
Art critics cringe when they see people like Wyland taken seriously. “I don’t consider Wyland an artist,” one critic sniffed. “At most he’s a talented illustrator.”
But popular art isn’t designed to confront the sensibilities, like avant-garde work displayed at trendy Soho galleries. It appeals to mass audiences--much like popular rock music and blockbuster movies.
“The goal is to develop products for people’s homes that create a warm, positive, loving environment,” Kinkade says. Guy Buffet, another popular artist, writes that “art should be something to enjoy and help you forget your worries. . . . I want you to be comfortable and relaxed.”
Popular artists are striking a lucrative chord among Americans with discretionary income and a longing for art--whether high or low--to decorate their living room walls for as little as $50. But these artists also offer higher-priced art--including originals that sell for thousands of dollars--for upscale collectors. One painter quips that there “are a trillion walls out there to fill” with wildlife, marine, inspirational and Americana scenes.
Painters like Wyland are “not unlike LeRoy Nieman, who 10 years ago no museum would have touched with a 10-foot pole,” Colburn said. “Or, on the productivity side, a Warhol, who brought up the idea that an artist doesn’t necessarily need to do everything himself--that it’s OK to have assistants do much of the work.”
And, if serious art critics dismiss them as mere illustrators?
“Norman Rockwell was a pretty good illustrator, and that’s fine company for me to keep,” said Wyland, who no longer uses his given name of Robert. “My mission isn’t about whether critics like me or not. My mission is taking my art to the people.”
Kinkade views paintings and prints as a stepping stone to bigger things. This year, his designs will decorate merchandise with a retail value of $160 million, according to Ken Raasch, a long-time friend and chief executive officer of Media Arts Group, the artist’s company.
“We envision ourselves as a brand-name company--an emerging consumer brand along the lines of Disney and Ralph Lauren,” says Raasch. “We’re the only consumer brand based upon the work of a living American artist.”
Media Arts, which already pitches its product on the Home Shopping Channel and has signed marketing deals with Avon Products Co. and Hallmark Cards Inc., is negotiating for shelf space in large retail chains like Wal-Mart.
Raasch ties the public’s appetite for Kinkade’s work to a failure among critically acclaimed artists to properly market their work.
“No more than a handful of people can name three living artists,” Raasch said. “They can tell you three popular actors, three popular musicians.
“But they’re starved for art. . . . And when they find an artist they like, they fall in love. And they tell their friends.”
Scott Usher, vice president of Greenwich Workshop Inc., a Shelton, Conn.-based art gallery operator with $20 million in revenue, offers a simple explanation for why the public supports its stable of 40 artists.
“You can try to get technical and describe what these artists do as ‘narrative realism,’ ” Usher said. “But, in essence, this is artwork that people look at and say, ‘Gee, I like that.’ ”
The Artist’s ‘Batting Average’
Stories abound about Wyland’s speed with an air brush.
A corporate sponsor once spent three weeks painting a huge trailer white so Wyland could decorate it. Friends say Wyland knocked off the mural in less than a day.
And the artist approaches painting much the same way baseball players track batting averages. He’s most comfortable when he’s “batting about 300”--finishing about 300 paintings and sculptures annually.
Even people in the business marvel at his plethora of new art-driven products.
“I was in a Nordstrom store recently,” said Frank Sisser, publisher of the trade magazine US Art. “And, lo and behold, there was a Nordstrom exclusive--expensive sweatshirts with Wyland’s artwork on them. . . . The man is a consummate marketer.”
But while speed has served Wyland well, observers caution that no one can ignore the law of supply and demand.
“The trick is keeping that special balance of attracting new customers and making sure they keep the old ones,” Usher said. “Anyone in this business has to wonder at what point it will become too much.”
The dramatic surge in collectible art in the last few years also raises serious questions about the long-term value of the pricier prints, mugs and throw rugs being pitched by popular artists.
“I would never advocate that anyone buy [prints] purely for their investment value,” Usher said. “That’s a crap-shoot, pure and simple.”
David Kovar, a 34-year-old computer industry consultant in San Jose, recently put part of his $4,200 Doolittle collection up for sale even though the market value was down by about $1,000.
But Kovar, who subsequently pulled the set off the market because he didn’t want to break up his collection, says he “didn’t buy it for the investment potential. Bev’s works please my eye and spirit.”
Barbara Drake, 50, acknowledges that her growing collection of Wyland marine life prints and coffee table books won’t make her heirs rich.
“When I’m gone, the kids will probably say, ‘Oh, this is something for the garage sale.’ But I’m attracted to [his art] for what it represents, for what it means to me. . . . It’s not a money thing.”
Wyland, who regularly appears on television shows while painting his murals, now sports the ultimate celebrity trapping: a small band of groupies--call them Whaleheads?--that shadows him as he travels the country painting his trademark murals.
He links his financial success to his decision to ignore college art professors who advised him to concentrate on art and leave commerce to professionals.
“I went back [to college] 15 years later for a reunion and they begged me to lecture on business,” Wyland says. “All of a sudden they realized that, while being a good artist is great, you have to understand the business end.”
And, even though demand for his painting remains strong--and his catalog is sufficient to keep his publishing arm busy for years to come--he is studying intellectual property law to safeguard his ideas.
“It’s all about who owns the images,” he said. “And to me, this is the most exciting time in history to be an artist. For the first time, you can control your images.”
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Wyland recently struck a deal to provide Gotcha, the Orange County-based surf apparel company, with artwork for a new clothing line. He’s pitching television deals with help from a Hollywood company that produced the Simpsons cartoon show.
And there’s talk of Wyland playing host to a marine-oriented show: “Something like ‘Pee Wee’s Playhouse’ under water,” Wyland says, laughing.
Whether he will thrive in his new ventures is far from certain.
His family-owned and operated company recently brought in its first professional manager, along with a major accounting firm and lawyers who are revamping “cigar box” accounting methods, restructuring a nonprofit arm and reworking some business arrangements crafted when the business was much smaller.
A Wyland gallery in Minnesota’s Mall of America recently failed, sparking a war of words between the artist’s corporate office and the disgruntled franchisee.
Hollywood could also be an uphill battle because the major networks have their own production companies and Wyland has allied himself with independent companies.
Companies that rely upon popular artists like Wyland also must plan for the inevitable day when the artist isn’t around to produce new work.
Usher’s company learned that hard lesson two years ago when a leading artist died in an accident scaling a Yosemite cliff. Now, the company is carefully shepherding his remaining canvases.
Wyland, who talks of working well into his 80s, laughs away concern that his hobbies--motorcycles, racing cars and deep-sea diving--could bring the whole empire crashing down: “That’s why we have the $50-million life insurance policy.”
“This isn’t work,” he said. “It’s a hobby that got out of control. And the fact that people buy my paintings is a gasser. . . . I mean, someone paid $225,000 for one of my paintings. Can you imagine that?”
