Natasha Archdale is a genius. The London-based artist, who charges up to $30,000 per piece, allows her clients, the majority of whom work in the financial industry, to purport masturbatory feelings for loved ones while craftily hiding their true agenda, that being masturbatory feelings for themselves.
Archdale creates nude figures in the likenesses of the wives, girlfriends, pool boys, and one night-stands of the Street’s most influential employees. For example, Steve Schwarzman. Schwarzman was recently gifted with a portrait of his wife, Christine. But Crab hands doesn’t just sit in his Park Avenue living room gazing up on the image of his stark naked wife. When Crabs sits down to admire the work of art, he’s also (mostly) admiring himself– Archdale’s pieces are constructed from, I shit you not, Financial Times articles that mention the Blackstone founder in all his glory. “I have yet to meet someone who does not want a naked picture of their loved ones with text about themselves,” a customer of Archdale– whose clientele is not only the perfect match for this medium because of its inordinate fascination with itself, and large sums of money to spend, but for its inability to tell the difference between a good piece of art and one constructed from Excel spreadsheets– told Bloomberg. We haven’t been in touch with the artist but we’re confident that it’s merely a matter of time before she drops the pretense and just pitches Schwarz et al on nude renderings of themselves. Not to get you too excited, but we hear someone was on the horn with Archstone this morning, spending the last of his Bear Stearns earnings on just that.
Female Nudes Crafted From Financial Times Lure Bank Barons [Bloomberg]
I knew a girl who went to Pratt who was a portrait artist. Her gimmick was she would paint you naked. That is to say, she got naked, and then painted your portrait. Business was outstanding.
From what I later heard, her career progressed the way you might expect, and she no longer bothers with the painting.
Bess,
Get on Crab hands obsession with George Carlin!
Who would have guessed?
Pete Peterson would only commission a nude portrait of himself.
Bess, I think this needs your attention?
“Goldman Reverses Its `Clearly Wrong’ Call on U.S. Financials”
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a67d.u6V86k8&refer=home
There isn’t enough canvas to paint me in the nude.
~Bad Leg Quezada
At least some of these portraits are of partners who were attracted by the wealth and fame of the person commissioning the piece. Why else would they even sit for it or tolerate the embarrassment of having it?
The irony is fantastic.
Who would have thought that these guys would hang art on their own walls that is so scathingly satirical of themselves and their closest personal relationships. They must see the joke; no one is that dense.
The artist is a genius, and her clients are surprisingly impervious to criticism.
Actually Bess, you mis attributed the quote to Archdale. The comment was made from the Icelandic woman, who is friends with the Schwartzman’s, who commissioned the painting.