By Cody Elliott
Richard Prince pisses people off. The artist, 68, is infamous to many for his “appropriation art.” He’s also lionized by much of the art world, who see him as a persecuted revolutionary. His legendary stunts, art, and art stunts have often attracted the attention of the world, and frequently kick up debate.
One of his underreported moves is worthy of more attention – after the 2016 presidential election, a painting of his in the collection of Ivanka Trump prompted the artist to return her money and announce that the painting was “de-authenticated.” What this means should prompt spirited debate within the art world. Among the issues it raises: How does ownership influence art?
As it happens, we’ve got an example of how this very family influences the art they own. In the earliest years of the 20th century, a talented set designer named Joseph Urban came to the United States from Austria. Urban trained with the Vienna Secessionists, the artistic movement that produced masters like Klimt and Schiele, before moving to Boston to design sets for operas. When Urban made his next move, to New York, he was the most in-demand designer in town. He became the resident designer at the Metropolitan Opera, before branching out and designing bar interiors, offices, and theaters.
William Randolph Hearst was so impressed by the artist that he commissioned him to design the Hearst Corporation’s New York headquarters. Urban’s design still stands, now as the base of the Hearst skyscraper. His design for the Ziegfeld Follies Theater was met with tremendous acclaim, along with side snide comments from the New Yorker. But everyone agreed that the interior was gorgeous, an absolute triumph of New Art. Urban enjoyed this success, designing for the Ritz Carlton and living in the St. Regis, where he eventually met his untimely death in 1933.
Unfortunately, few of his buildings remain. Perhaps the most notable is the Mar-a-Lago resort, now belonging to Donald Trump. Urban’s interior was noted for its theatricality and highly ornate features, like the enormous carved double doors leading into the palatial dining room. Urban added as well to Marion Simons Wyeth’s exterior, adding elements such as the sweeping driveway lined with palm trees.
Of course, back then it wasn’t a part of the Trump brand. It was commissioned by businesswoman and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post, who bequeathed it to the federal government when she died. She hoped that it would be used as a winter home for the president. Instead, the maintenance costs prompted the government to return it to the Post Foundation.
The foundation in turn sold it to Trump – after he bought a narrow strip of land between it and the beach and threatened to “build a wall,” obstructing the view and decreasing Mar-A-Lago’s value. Because of these tactics, he got it for a song – $7 million, instead of the original $25 million asking price.
Trump maintained the residence as his personal estate for a time, before eventually turning it into a golf resort. He made several changes to it over this time, but much of Urban’s original design stayed intact. What did not stay intact was the public perception of Mar-a-Lago. What was once heralded as a beautiful home, fit for a president, is now most often described as vulgar, crass, and a sign of decadence.
Urban’s personal papers are in Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Before I visited, I was familiar with his work from the hordes of images available online. But I did not have any appreciation of what was being covered up by the pixelated images, the bad photos – and the association with Donald Trump.
In one archive box, I found his set design for Parsifal, Wagner’s final opera. It was an original painted set design, mounted on plain matt board. The collection featured an endless variety of these, but while many of them were new to me, Parsifal had been photographed before, and I had seen it online.
What I hadn’t appreciated before suddenly became beautiful in the flesh. The colors, bright and countering each other in a delicate intermingling, might have risked being gaudy but presented instead as the work of someone whose understanding of color was deft. His sweeping lines, articulated in a surprising pointillist manner, offered grace and not extravagance. The beauty of his ideas suddenly came to light. Not only had I been misguided in my undervaluation, I had let the shadow of Trump color my opinions on Urban.
Prince sending Ivanka her money back is easy to interpret as a meaningless gesture, a publicity stunt, especially given his reputation as a publicity-seeker. His disavowal, though, is significant. Can she, or her image, change his art simply by ownership? Can he rescue his reputation by removing his blessing as creator? In the future, will this painting sell at auction for any less or more money? It might seem silly to disavow art, or even impossible. But as Urban’s Mar-A-Lago proves, the stakes are high, and Prince’s decision certainly seems to make an attempt to control the narrative around his art.