🔥 Dead Wall Capital + Mark Tobey

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HEY Y’ALL!

Thanks for all the great feedback on the Ad Minoliti piece I shared last day!

🔥 ICYMI – Catchs from the Last Week:

1. Andy Warhol, Cow (F. & S. II.12), 1971 - priced at £30,000

2. Tomokazu Matsuyama, Daylight Away, 2021 - priced at £5,500

3. Tracey Emin, No! This is sad, 2022 - priced at £9,500

Today we have Mark Tobey, one of the few artists who made spiritual abstraction sexy before the New York boys stole the credit. Meanwhile, the smart money’s unlocking liquidity like it’s Q4 earnings season.

-Today’s Catch-

Mark Tobey

💭 My 2 Cents: Thirteen grand for a 1965 Tobey work on paper? Honestly, that’s a steal…for now. This isn’t some fringe sketch from a dusty studio bin. It’s signed, dated, certified by the Committee, and dripping in the kind of East-meets-West mysticism that makes curators sweat. The scale’s modest, but this is late Tobey, when he was living in Basel, doing fewer shows, and doubling down on that wild calligraphic flow. The red in here adds a punch, less Zen garden, more spiritual rebellion. The kind of piece you hang and pretend you meditate in front of.

🔑 Key Numbers: Tobey’s top auction hit €1.4M in 2018. Even his paper works regularly push $50–200K if they have presence. This one’s got the certification (big deal), it’s from the '65 sweet spot, and the color palette isn’t your standard black-and-white spiritual wash. Price? £13K. That’s what someone paid for a Jonas Wood print last week.

🧠 Why It’s a Smart Pick: The market’s already reawakening to Tobey’s role as the proto–Pollock. Serious institutions are on board. Supply of authenticated, attractive mid-period works on paper is drying up. This price point isn’t just under the radar, it’s buried treasure.

Turn Art into an Asset Class

Each week, I open five private strategy calls for collectors who want their next acquisition to work harder — capital appreciation, liquidity, hard data, zero guesswork.

✅ 30-minute 1-on-1 portfolio audit: we map your budget, risk, and exit horizon, then pinpoint specific artworks currently on the market.

✅ Two months of Artscapy Club membership — free. Early-access deals, price indices, peer portfolio insights. Regular price: $120. You pay $0.

Here’s what a collector messaged me after our call last week:

Five spots only. Once they fill, next availability is June.

-In a Minute-

🔥 Words I Like: laddered, margin-called, wall-zombie

How to Turn Static Art into Strategic Ammo

Liquidity is back in fashion—if you know how to extract it.
Half the collectors in 2025 are sitting on works they can’t move or won’t admit are dead weight.
Meanwhile, the real players are laddering out—tiering their portfolio based on how fast they can cash out when opportunity strikes.
This is war-chest strategy. Not legacy planning.

Tier 1 is firepower: pledge your Warhol for a line of credit, 10 days, no drama. Artscapy has already financed 50 % of their clients’ buys this quarter.
Tier 2 is stealth exit: advance sale to a dealer with repurchase option—keeps you liquid and invisible.
Tier 3 is consignment ammo: dump your mid-tier inventory into Phillips day sales before the fall season. Just read the Mitchell comps and adjust your ego accordingly.
Tier 4 is the big swing: if your piece has heat, lock an irrevocable bid and let Sotheby’s pump it for 6 weeks straight. That’s how Lisa Brice went from £1.5m to £5.4m in March.

Art is capital. If you’re not laddering, you’re lounging.
Every piece on your wall should have a liquidity half-life.
If it doesn’t sell, it better borrow.
If it can’t borrow, it better be sold privately.
If it’s too toxic to sell, burn it for the tax loss.

This market doesn’t reward romance. It rewards readiness.
Art-backed lending is climbing—while your Basel wishlist isn’t getting cheaper.
Margin calls are already happening. One dealer in Geneva got burned by a 58 % LTV misfire—don’t be him.
Play offense with your inventory or get priced out of the next swing.

-Whenever You Are Ready-

Here are 3 ways I can help you:​

1. Serious about collecting? Join Frame&Flame Circle, my exclusive WhatsApp group for top-tier art connections. Apply now!

2. Get in front of my audience - With more than 10,000+ newsletter subscribers and 200k+ Instagram followers, my team and I work with dozens of partners in unique ways to help them grow. Interested in a partnership, tap here.

3. Don’t gamble on your art investments. Get a free advisory consult and 60-day membership at Artscapy—no guesswork, just expert guidance.

See you soon!

-Alvaro (@theartmarketguy)

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Disclaimer

Not financial advice. Frame&Flame is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions.