Essay: The Fame Factor

T H E F A M E F A C T O R

by Wim Roefs

Worldwide, Karel Appel is probably the most famous artist in this exhibition, to which many would respond: “Karel who?” Joan Mitchell likely is the most famous among an American audience, but, no, she didn’t sing about paving paradise to put up a parking lot. That would be Joni.

Tons of books on Appel, and a few less on Mitchell, don’t change the fact that among people attending this show, Laura Spong is probably better known – and she makes due with one 32-page catalogue. Leo Twiggs is much better known in South Carolina than Appel and Mitchell, and his catalogue contains only 72 pages, though there’s a book on the way.

Fame is relative, in other words. Few people, artists or otherwise, are universally famous. Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso – very few have their name recognition. Don’t think Michael Jordan ever was a household name in Europe.

There are, of course, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally famous artists. Spong has local and some statewide fame. Edward Rice is in many regional museums. Twiggs has different degrees of regional and national fame. Bram van Velde is internationally famous – the French have his work on a stamp – but in the United States he is obscure. Lynn Chadwick is of a revered generation of mid-century British sculptors, but who can name any of them, aside from Henry Moore and perhaps Barbara Hepworth?

Some artists were famous in a certain era. Paul Reed was among the original Washington Color Field painters in the 1960s, but of them, only Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis are really famous – and had you ever heard of them? Ibram Lassaw was one of the premier sculptors of the 1940s and 1950s New York School. Alas, Abstract Expressionist sculptors, except for David Smith, played fourth fiddle after first-, second- and third-tier painters.

Other artists are famous within a certain medium or among specific audiences. Virginia Scotchie has substantial local and regional fame, but nationally and internationally mostly in the world of ceramics. Benny Andrews and Richard Hunt have long been “famous African-American artists,” though by now their reputations have widened substantially. Sam Middleton first became big in the Netherlands, where he has lived for 40-plus years, before becoming a well-known African-American artist.

Appel is the most famous member of CoBrA, a groundbreaking Northern European group from around 1950 with a big international reputation. CoBrA member Corneille makes surveys of 20th-century art, too. With Jacques Doucet, Reinhoud and Lucebert, you still have famous artists, but beyond France, Belgium and the Netherlands they are mostly known through their CoBrA connection. You’ll be happy to know, though, that Lucebert also is one of the most famous 20th-century poets in the Dutch language, spoken by some 28 million people, a few million more people than live in Texas.