Is John Hoyland the new Turner?

What happens to an artist’s reputation when he dies? Traditionally, there was a period of cooling off when the reputation, established during a lifetime, lost momentum and frequently collapsed, quite often presaging a long fallow period before reassessment could take place. The Pre-Raphaelites suffered this to a very pronounced degree. Famously, Andrew Lloyd Webber tells the story of buying his first Victorian pictures for pocket money in junk shops, and just missing Lord Leighton’s ‘Flaming June’ because he didn’t have the £50 asking price.

Closer to our own time, when Graham Sutherland died in 1980 his reputation plummeted terribly, having for years been overinflated by a loyal European market that bought him at increasingly high prices. (The Italians, rather unexpectedly, were particularly fond of his work.) His paintings and drawings have gradually regained their value and now he is riding high again. But the once sought-after later graphic work remains inexpensive, to be picked up for bargain prices. Among his prints, only the densely romantic early etchings hold their own at auction.

With the increasing commodification of art, the situation has polarised. Art is now such big business that the market cannot afford to let the standing of an international property such as Bacon or Freud slump: or perhaps it is just too soon for them to be seen as other than highly bankable. But Bacon has been dead now for a dozen years and in the past that has been long enough for the tide of taste to turn once the artist is no longer there to dominate it. The truth is that finance rules the market to a far greater degree now than 30 years ago and reputations are artificially sustained for the protection of investments. The Bacon industry is booming, with the huge project of a catalogue raisonné well under way, and prices continuing to rise.