Discerning Eye: Frederick Mulder
January 2008
Mulder, a London–based specialist in Old Master and modern prints, recently made history by selling a Picasso print for a price—over $3 million—that is believed to be the highest ever for a single print, at auction or privately. "La Minotauromachie" (1935), one of an edition of 50 and signed by the artist, was purchased by an American private collector on the opening night of the IFPDA Print Fair in New York on October 31.WHY IS THIS PRINT SO SPECIAL?
If you ask most museum curators what they would pick if they could only have one original print in their collection, I expect most would plump for Picasso’s "Minotauromachie." (Some might say Rembrandt’s "Three Crosses.") The impression I sold was one of a very few signed ones likely to come on the market now. Picasso didn’t give the whole edition to a dealer, as he did with most of his prints. He tended to give the "Minotauromachie" to friends, and he often signed them when he gave them away. He had only disposed of half of the edition by the time he died, so only half were ever signed. Most people would prefer to have this great subject signed rather than unsigned; an early signature near the time the print was executed is better; and a cast-iron provenance is even better. The provenance of this impression is as good as you can get: It was given by Picasso to Jacqueline Apollinaire, widow of Picasso’s great friend Guillaume Apollinaire, the modernist poet, shortly after it was made, and she was sufficiently proud of it that she loaned it for an important exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris in July 1937.
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE SUBJECT AND TECHNIQUE?
Technically there are more interesting prints, this one doesn’t use a lot of different techniques—mostly etching with some engraving. Pictorially, though, it’s very complex, there’s a lot going on in it. It contains many of the themes of Picasso’s paintings and drawings of the 1930s: the minotaur, as well as some things that get reprised in "Guernica"—for example, the illuminating lamp and the dying horse.
HOW DOES THIS SALE REFLECT ON THE PRINT MARKET?
A museum director put it to me very well: If you lined up all Picasso’s great images, this print would be ahead of many paintings and drawings. It stands to reason that a handful of the great subjects will be bought by people who otherwise would only buy paintings, and there will probably be a widening division between these great works and all the others.
The great subjects will increase in value at a higher rate than the rest. It’s the same as most fields, actually. In the last downturn in the art market in the early 1990s, much of the secondary material didn’t recover at the same rate as the best material did. I think a concentration of interest in the great material will continue whether or not we have a another shakeout.
The classical, pre-1960 print market has certainly moved upward in the last few years, and although the real action has been in the contemporary print market, I think that material is overvalued now, and that won’t always be the case. I think the classical field is much more stable and a much, much better value.HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN THIS FIELD?
I started collecting in 1968 when I was writing my doctoral dissertation in philosophy at Oxford. I had a Canada Council Fellowship, which gave me more money than I had ever had, so I decided to start collecting, and prints were only things I could afford. But I liked the fact that they were complex, unpretentious and democratic. When I finished my doctorate, I decided to set up as a private dealer before going into an academic career, but liked it so much I stuck with it.
My first purchases were pretty bad—a late Callot, a Dürer with the monogram cut off, a posthumous Rembrandt. It was uphill from then on.
When I went to Paris for the first time (I grew up in Western Canada), I discovered a cache of Picassos in a print shop that I was sure were too inexpensive. I mortgaged my next year’s fellowship to buy them and promptly sold most of them to dealers in London. That put the thrill of the chase in me, the treasure-hunt aspect that used to be more a part of print dealing than it is now. Then, you didn’t need much money, just a good nose, a good eye and good sturdy shoes.