Overcoming Fears of Miro and Picasso

By MICHELLE SLATALLA
Published: November 3, 2005

ON my walls is a collection of art that can best be described as eclectic.

Above the fireplace is "Iris Garden," a triptych of colored 19th-century Japanese wood-block prints. Nearby hangs a six-foot-high vintage advertising poster that depicts the big red Laughing Cow of cheese fame - a cow with horns and dangly earrings. By the front door is a drawing the British illustrator David Hughes executed in watercolor, pen and hair.

I like to think diversity is plucky. Others might call my walls a mishmash. Either way, my enthusiasm for taking risks ought to make me an ideal candidate to shop online for original art.

So why was I so terrified by the idea?

For an amateur like me, art is intimidating enough in a bricks-and-mortar setting, where I can feel creases in an 80-year-old poster or see how the shades of green and blue complement each other in a print.

Online, there's far less to go on, just a tiny image that diminishes the power of even Picasso to postage-stamp quality. What if I make a mistake? How do I know if I'm dealing with a reputable dealer? How can I decode the complexity of language like "posthumous impression" and "lift-ground aquatint" in an arcane world where a lithograph is a print but a print is not necessarily a lithograph?

These are the same questions that Costco Wholesale set out to answer a couple of years ago when the giant discount retailer made room for art alongside the 20-pound boxes of dog food and toaster ovens it sells under the home and pets listing at Costco.com.

The experiment was a success, with the site's art category expanding from a handful of limited-edition lithographs by artists like Picasso, Miró and Chagall to its current multidealer incarnation. This week, 28 items were for sale, ranging from $499.99 lithographs by the Italian figurative artist Bruno Di Maio to an original Picasso crayon-on-paper drawing for $145,999.99.

Now Greg Moors, the Bay Area art dealer who started Costco's art category, has embarked on a similar venture with ShopNBC.com, the online arm of the 24-hour television shopping network. Last month, Mr. Moor started to sell original lithographs by artists like Chagall, Picasso and Max Cohn in the site's house and home category, alongside 400-thread-count sateen sheets and 45-piece stainless steel flatware sets.

Mr. Moors's goal is to make art accessible to everyone. "The creation of art will always be a mystery, but the buying of it shouldn't be," he said. "I originally got the idea of selling through big discount retailers one day when I was walking through a Target store, looking at all the terrible poster work they have for sale, and I wondered, 'Why do people have to have bad art when there are lots of high-quality lithographs for less than $1,000?' "

The trick to buying art online, Mr. Moors said, is to find a trustworthy seller who will guarantee authenticity and allow you to return a piece for any reason. And buyers should take the time to educate themselves about what they like by looking at pictures in art books, visiting museums and talking to dealers. Online galleries like Spaightwoodgalleries.com, Lockportstreetgallery.com and Farrellfineart.com have images and descriptions of hundreds of prints they sell online.

If you don't understand the difference between, say, an original lithograph and an after-print, ask the dealer to explain. "More than half the customers who buy online from me phone first," Mr. Moors said. Questions include those on the condition of the paper - is it watermarked or is there foxing? - to whether a piece was hand-signed by an artist.

For a beginner like me, the images on the ShopNBC site were not alluring. Was I missing something?

I drove to Mr. Moors's house, a few miles away from mine in Northern California, to look at the pictures he was selling online. I found his cottage on a winding side street in west Marin County. In front was a whimsical gnome guarding the garden; in the back, a creek ran beneath his deck.

Inside, the scene was just as charming. A framed, untitled Miró color lithograph ($1,399.95 at ShopNBC) was vivid, bold and arresting on a wall above Mr. Moors's kitchen table.

The composition of a $1,099.95 framed Max Cohn color screen print called "On the Beach," in which the outline of a prone sunbather mimics the contours of the distant shoreline, was immediately distinctive when I looked at the color screen print hanging on a bedroom wall.

Chagall's colors were luminous. Marcel Vertes's figures had life. And a series of three framed black-and-white Picasso bullfighting scenes ($1,499.95 apiece) were irresistible.

I left as quickly as possible to avoid spending money.

Back at home, while viewing the ShopNBC site, I read the description of "Pass With Cape" by Picasso: "Created by Pablo Picasso for 'A Los Toros.' It was produced at Mourlot Studios in Paris in 1961."

A keyword search for the lithograph turned up other copies of the same "Los Toros" lithographs for sale for $1,100 apiece (framed) at Georgetownframeshoppe.com.

I phoned Georgetown Frame Shoppe and learned that one of the lithographs, described by Georgetown as "Jeu de La Cape" and by ShopNBC.com as "Pass With Cape," had been sold. The other two were available, unframed, for $800 apiece.

Mr. Moors said that such price discrepancies were not unusual. "You can track down those black-and-white lithographs in galleries at prices anywhere up to about $3,000 apiece," he said. "Art is kind of like antiques in that way. There's a range in price, depending on what the dealer paid."

He thought about it for a minute. "You know, there was a time when you probably could have gotten those Picasso lithographs for $20 a piece," he said. "These artists are dead. There's not going to be any more of their work. If you love it and plan to keep it for a lifetime, you can't go wrong."

Was I ready to buy a Picasso lithograph online? Yes. Thanks to Mr. Moors, I wasn't the least bit terrified anymore. I could picture the little bullfighter hanging happily in the same room with my Chinese propaganda posters. The only obstacle that stood between me and Picasso's "Pass With Cape" was $1,499.95, which if you think about it, is nothing compared with fear.