Word: collectors
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Rich. As payment, the stars demand about half a movie's budget, and get most of it under the table ("black money") in order to bilk the tax collector. Although often of low-caste birth, they win such passionate public adulation (oddly mixed with India's idea that actresses are on a level with prostitutes) that they have to be constantly escorted by baton-swinging cops. "These are the new maharajahs," says one bitter moviemaker. "When I think of the money we gamble on them, I can't sleep...
...police lab even found particles of nylon. A concertmaster brought Iviglia a "Stradivarius" (for which he had paid $13,000) with a label reading "Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis faciebat Anno 1703." Underneath, another label was found reading "Pietro Antonio della Costa, Treviso, Anno 1764." Both labels were false. A Swiss collector brought in a 1716 "Stradivarius" for which she had paid $30,000, was informed by Iviglia's office that she owned "a very handsome instrument dating back to about 1800 and worth not more than...
These days, when getting a well-written letter in the mail is as rare as getting a refund from the tax collector, many readers will be happy to agree with Belloc's own estimate of himself. A self-described mixture of "Poverty, Papistry and Pugnacity," Belloc (who died in 1953) had a solemn high literary funeral last year in an authorized biography (TIME, April 22, 1957). Biographer Speaight found leftover material too good to forget, notably a big bundle of crotchety letters-which are a long way from the sort of garrulous guff women still write to each other...
...justified expenditure as a part of an $80 billion budget . . . Consistency requires that Government programs be evaluated in terms of what must be given up by the increased taxes necessary to pay for them." Parallel path to an eventual balanced budget is stiffening of taxes in areas where the collector's touch is lightest (insurance companies, oil depletion allowance, farm cooperatives) and a broadening of the tax base to "stand the stress and strain of high revenue requirements...
Many a dedicated painter still freezes in a cold-water flat, still depends on the discriminating small collector who cares more about his instincts than his investments. But the flood of money into the art market is testament to the new status of art in the scale of values of U.S. culture. Even those unknown artists who do not benefit directly, or at once, can be grateful. As long as prices are posted over lunch counters, artists will go on taking an interest in the relation between the price of what they sell and the price of what they...