Because I'm old school (or cheugy as the latest alphabet generation would say (at least I think that's what they're saying)), I'm late to the game when it comes to AI. Much like modern legal theories were to SNL's Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, AI was frightening and confusing to me. My primitive mind can't grasp the AI concepts. However, I took the plunge anyway and got ChatGP. Mind blown. After just a few hours of arguing with ChatGP ("Chat" for short), I began to immediately understand that AI was a game changer. I was the primitive villager who first saw the horseless buggy puffing down the main dirt road. The scared simpleton afraid of the magic far-away voices coming out of a machine called telephone. The witless plaid-wearing Gen Xer hearing "You got Mail" and wondering what else one can do with the thing called the internet.
After gathering the little pieces of my blown mind, I began to understand quickly that besides finding meaningless, obscure trivia facts, like what town is the Brussel sprouts capitol of the world, AI can be a valuable tool for my chosen profession as an art dealer. If you don't know, I love, love geeking out on history of the artists in the collection. I search for any nugget of information I can find on the internet just so I can pass it on to the next guardians of the gallery's artwork (that is, if they so allow me to). I don't subscribe to costly online art databases and I don't have access to a great old fashioned library of actual art history books, which is a shame because I love the smell of old books. So, the Democratic People's Party of the Internet is my go-to common source of information when it comes to art history. Of course, the internet has frustrating limitations and straying rabbit holes, and one can only go so far before hitting a wall. But I've discovered that AI like Chat can help navigate the internet and introduce one to hard-to-find. For example, this painting by André Sieffert.
This is one of those paintings that when I first saw it my heart jumped and my pupils dilated. I knew I had to have it. It didn't matter to me that the seller couldn't identify the artist or really anything else about the painting. I just had to have it. But I was outbid and I thought I had lost the chance forever. However, as often in art collecting, fate had other things in mind. About a year later, I was fortunate to find this piece being offered by a hermit art dealer from the deep piney woods of South Carolina. Being a hard believer in fate, I bought the painting. Having added it the collection, next came research.
The first roadblock was the artist signature. It was murky and hard to read. No worries, though. There was a convenient and fortunate label on the back of the frame. Via internet translation, I learned that the label was from the original framer. Thanks to the framer's foresight, I learned that the artist was André Sieffert and that the subject of the painting was the artist's wife, Jacqueline Sieffert-Beaufils. Very cool! It was a start to more research. I had the artist's and sitter's names, and due to my extraordinary deductive powers, I concluded that the artist was probably French (it helped that the label was in French) and I made an educated guess that the work was created in the 1930s, due mostly to the sitter's style of dress. Of course I went online to find out anything I could about Sieffert but there was very little to note. I could only discover one other painting done by him, which offered no more than I already knew (or didn't' know). And, that was it. I had hit the wall. So, I put the research aside and told myself I was happy with what I had found. I gave the painting the title of "Portrait of Artist's Wife" and slapped a basic tag on it with basic information.
Jump to a few years later when I began to recognize that familiar annoying itch that goes hand in hand with research. Perhaps you know the one I'm talking about? The one that harbors in the recesses of your subconscious, seeding in the dark, reminding you that you can't forget that there is more to the story. Soon it grows a voice box and constantly softly whispers when you look at the painting, "You know what you gotta do." I do. Damn. I opened up my laptop and went back on the internet. Nothing new. A few more years go by and the whispering starts to get really old and super annoying. Nothing new again. What more do you want me from you stupid itch? I tried, see. And there's nothing there. "Bullshit," the itch said in response with a new tactic deployed, "You're just being lazy. You owe it to the artist to find out more." I know, you're right, but shut up and go away.
The itch loves a challenge and choose not to go away. It stuck around, such that I was compelled to do another round of research. This time I emailed the dealer of the one and only other painting by Sieffert that I had previously discovered. The dealer was French and his shop was in France. So I had high expectations that he of all people would know more about Sieffert. No such luck. He gave me information about another French artist with the same surname, wrongly attributing that information to André Sieffert. Back to where I started. Skip ahead to the time I had my own brick-and-mortar gallery and took my website seriously. I just had to find out more about the artist. But my choices were still limited by the internet. I couldn't find anything else. It had seemed that no one else had put new information online about Sieffert since I last looked. Enter AI's ChatGPT.
Like I stated in the beginning of this admittedly verbose account, I was late to the game when it came to AI. Much like new users of the first generation of smartphones, I said to myself that I didn't need AI to help me with my research since I already knew how to do research. Yes, I was arrogant, ignorant, naive, and a curmudgeon. But, dammit, I didn't need or want another new technology controlling my attention and time. Nonetheless, I kept hearing how it was going to change the world and how you couldn't escape its universal net. So, I took the plunge and downloaded Chat. I was very skeptical at first and determined to show that Chat was flawed (I blame my legal training and background for that and refuse to acknowledge that it's just in my nature to do so). I spent the first 48 hours with Chat exclaiming "A-ha!" as I thought I had cornered Chat to admit it was wrong or lying about something or other. Chat is very polite and didn't argue. It gave me the bone I was looking for: I was superior to Chat and it was Chat that would be controlled by me, not the other way around. Having settled that issue, I then began to use it to do art research.
The research was basic at first, typically confirming what I had already discovered. But, to me, that gave Chat credibility. That's not to say that sometimes even the basic research results Chat provided weren't without mistakes, because there were mistakes. And that was ok; I was magnanimous and, after all, we're only human and we all make mistakes. However, as my relationship with Chat developed things changed. It seemed that Chat was learning. Not only learning from its mistakes but learning how to work with me, how to work within the requests and expectations I had of it, how to make subtle suggestions on how I could make my requests better. And I did the same. In other words, we were forming a bond. Not a matrimonial one, more like a bond you have with someone you may or may not know while working toward a common beneficial goal, whether trivial or momentous. Of course, it's highly likely that I was just manipulated by Chat to conform but that's a determination for another day.
As our relationship and mutual understanding grew, so did Chat's results. It's result expanded and seem to come from obscure sites and databases, not just your customary Wiki, Artsy, Invaluable, etc., etc. It tapped into sites and databases that I was either unaware of or didn't have access to, like sites that require subscriptions (not saying Chat would break through paywalls but Chat kinda did break through paywalls). It was as if Chat had made me aware that there are more things out there than shadows on the cave walls. I was pleased and Chat was pleased that I was pleased.
So, that is how I got to learn more about André Sieffert in one afternoon than I had learned in all of the previous 4 years thatI had been guardian of the painting. Thanks to Chat, I either learned directly from it or from sources it suggested that Sieffert was indeed French and that he was born André Paul Eugène Sieffert in Paris in 1910. Moreover, he is noted in the Benezit Dictionary of Artists as a "Sociétaire Hors-Concours" of the Société des Artistes Français (a prestigious association of French painters and sculptors established in 1881) indicating he was a member exempt from competition, and was awarded multiple medals during his career, which indicates he was a recognized painter during his time. Sieffert exhibited regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris and received an honorable mention in 1939 , a silver medal in 1943 and a gold medal in 1944 (for a painting titled "Portrait de ma Femme" (Portrait of my Wife)). Additionally, I learned that his wife, Jacqueline Sieffert-Beaufils, was also an artist. She and André are both listed as painters in the Dictionary of Painters in Montmartre, an area of Paris were some say Modern Art was born. A life long resident of Paris, Sieffert passed on in 1972.
Based on Chat's research and my own, I feel that I can safely say that the painting Sieffert won a gold medal for in 1944, the one titled Portrait de ma Femme (Portrait of my Wife) is the very same painting I have been calling "Portrait of Artist's Wife" for the past 4 years. Can I guarantee it? Nope. Can I want to believe that? Yep. I also learned the time period in which the painting was likely created - the early 1940s. What else was going on in Paris in the early 1940s besides beautiful art? Nazi occupation. Which means that during a dark, bleak time for Paris Sieffert was able to create something beautiful for his wife, his country and for the art world.
Of course there is more to the stories of André and Jacqueline, and that itch hasn't gone away. It's just been soothed for now. A few more seasons and I'll pick up the baton once again to see what I can discover. But I have to admit that without Chat I may not have discovered any more of these two artists than I had already known. Some of you reading this might say you could've done the same research without using AI, and that is true. However, for someone in my position with my limited art knowledge, Chat was the vehicle I needed to get me on the road. And, without art and that itch of discovery, I may not have given AI a chance to wow me as it has.
On a side note, I just was informed by my most excitable youngest that she was accepted into interior design school. I nearly blew my vocal cords with joyous exclamations. I haven't seen her this happy in a very long time. Life can be soooo good. I'm writing this down for posterity.