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There was a controversy years ago that was sparked by a man who felt slighted by a museum curator and who decided to exact revenge for that slight. I think I know who the curator was (I'm not positive, however) and I met the person who felt slighted several years after the revenge had been exacted. In essence, the man who felt slighted was an exceptional craftsman, the kind of craftsman that you would suggest is an artist, not simply a furniture maker. Even though good furniture makers are usually driven to make things to a standard, their standard, no matter how high, is not necessarily artistic. And I would bet that most furniture makers would accede to this statement that some of their product over the years was uneven--not in quality, but in the way that it stands and the way that it projects. You can say this about most antique furniture as well. There are pieces that just stand out and there are many that don't.
The craftsman decided to exact revenge by making a fake of a rare form of chair that he knew a museum would want. It was a successful strategy and he was able to point the finger at curators as no-nothings. This caused a bit of an uproar in the curatorial world. I don't bring this up to embarrass anyone--I wouldn't mention names anyway, but I do believe that the crafts world, specifically the furniture making craft, has been ignored. Certain makers have been lionized, but I am quite positive that there are plenty of very good makers who are struggling to make a living. If ever there was a reason for faking old things, it is the struggle to earn money at craft. But even there, the value of old things has fallen and so what has happened is that woodworkers look for a "signature" design they can call their own and therefore become a manufacturer--not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly not a craftsman's choice.
I think about craftspeople simply because the world of craft is a very hard world to get any footing in. A few countries, like Japan, give craftsmen "National Treasure" status for becoming preeminent in their craft. Artist resale commissions, allegedly designed to reward the artist (and their descendants) on the resale of their items, seldom works as the system in the EU is cumbersome and focused on the collection of money and less on payment of the funds to the artist or descendants. And it doesn't promote talent, it rewards the artists that "made it", many of whom are already dead. No, it is people like the disgruntled craftsman/artist in the first paragraph who need to be identified and rewarded before they pass away, not afterwards. I have one suggestion. Instead of museums focusing on the trendy, why not focus on the artist/craftspeople who aren't yet trendy in the form of competitions. Let the curators learn what's out there--the British Royal Academy does that every year with its Annual Summer Exhibition (it's open to all artists and the works are for sale) which makes millions for the Academy. It's just a thought.
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