The REAL Estate & Investment Show

THEREANDISHOW 004 - Interviewing Legendary Art Gallery Owner, Dom Taglialatella!

• Daniel Clavijo

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The REAL Estate & Investment Show - Episode 004 – Dom Taglialatella!

In this episode of The REAL Estate and Investment Show, host Daniel Clavijo sits down with Dom Taglialatella — art gallery owner, storyteller, and legend with nearly five decades in the art business.

Dom shares his remarkable journey from being raised by a single immigrant mother in East Harlem, to playing basketball at high school and college, to co-founding a national bank at 27, becoming a minority owner of the New Jersey Nets, pioneering the import of foreign tires in America, and ultimately building one of the most respected art gallery empires — with locations in New York City, Toronto, Paris, and Palm Beach.

Now at 85 and launching his new gallery TFA - Tella Fine Art, Dom is as sharp, funny, and passionate as ever.

In this episode:

  • Dom's remarkable life story from Harlem to Wall Street to the art world
  • His journey from tire salesman to art gallery owner and his business wisdom like how to run your business so it doesn't run you
  • The connection between art, music, and laughter
  • Why education is the key to breaking down the fear of art
  • Insights on art as an alternative investment
  • The story of Van Gogh, graveyards, and finding spiritual connection through art history
  • His famous lecture series at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club
  • Dom's famous art dealer joke (you don't want to miss it!)

🎨 Find Dom at TFA - Tella Fine Art in Palm Beach — by appointment only 📺 Watch his Art Legends Minute series: Search "Art Legends Minute Dom Taglialatella" on YouTube (80+ segments!) 📻 Catch Dom on Legends Radio 100.3 FM, Palm Beach

Connect with Dom:
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tellafineart/

• Website: https://www.tellafineart.com/

• Dom’s Art Legends Minute on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@artlegendsminute5589

Watch on YouTube! https://youtu.be/uxnwQ9PBf6c

For business inquiries, you can reach me at info@thereandishow.com
 
*Some of the links and other products that may appear on this video are from companies which THEREANDISHOW will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. THEREANDISHOW is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. This is not investment advice.

SPEAKER_04

This is the real estate and investment show with Daniel Burrito. The number one show for real estate and investment industry. Brought to you in part by Wadi Esto. Residential architecture of distinction. For 50 years, delivering high-quality architectural and interior design services, serving New Canaan, Tom Beach, and beyond. And by RenQuest. Specializing in the renovation and restoration of vintage automobiles. RenQuest. It's why we drive. And now it's time for The Real Estate and Investment Show with Daniel Clavijo. All right, hello. And thank you for tuning in to the Real Estate and Investment Show with Daniel Clavijo. I am Daniel Clavijo, coming to you from beautiful, sunny, Palm Beach, Florida. What is the Real Estate and Investment Show and who am I, you may ask? Well, our show wants to focus on the experience of amazing people in real estate and investment space and share their knowledge with you, our wonderful audience. I truly hope that together we spark some ideas and inspiration for you wherever that may be. And who am I? Well, I'm an architect grad from the University of Miami, MBA grad from NYU Stern, and I've been designing homes in Palm Beach and the surrounding areas for over a decade. I now get to share the stories of such talented individuals with you. Questions or suggestions about our show, write to us at info atherandishow.com. That also spells out theirandishow.com, the abbreviated form for our show's name. Find us on YouTube, Spotify, and wherever you enjoy your podcast, we'd appreciate your help. Like, comment, follow, subscribe, and above all, share with your friends and family. It is thanks to you that we will be able to grow and bring you high quality content and guests in the real estate and investment space. Speaking of which, we have an amazing guest with us today. He is an art gallery owner with nearly five decades in the business. From humble beginnings as a Goodyear tiles tire salesman in New Jersey to running art galleries in New York City, Toronto, Paris, and Palm Beach, he's seen and sold it all. He's been a founder of a national bank, a minority owner in a basketball team, a man of many talents. He also hosts a popular segment on Legends Radio 100.3 FM. A great story and joke teller, but above all, ask him, and he will be sure to tell you his passion is educating and teaching others about artists and art. He is the man, the myth, the legend, the one and only. Thank you, thank you. That's quite an introduction. Well, I think that we would run out of time if we went through all the introduction, but it's amazing, and thank you, Dom, for joining us.

SPEAKER_01

You're welcome. By the way, you have a terrific voice for what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

That's really appreciated because of a little bit of my uh radio segments that I do. But maybe, maybe, Daniel, we can expound a little on and expand a little bit on uh some of the points you made.

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Uh I'm going to tell you that uh I was born and raised in East Harlem. My mom was a single-parent immigrant. When I was born, I was only 23 years removed from the soil of Italy. And at that time, East Harlem was 100% Italian. I didn't even know a name that ended in a vowel. I was fortunate that in a way that our building was being knocked down on 123rd Street to build the projects in New York City. So at 13 or 14, my mom moved us to a little town called Dunellin, New Jersey. Uh it was quite a change for me. Everybody looked different, everybody spoke different, and I had a very distinct New York accent. But thank God I had the ability to play some basketball, and my high school coach is probably the most influential person in my life. And I think if you ask people, they're gonna say two most influential people in my life were my grandmother, my mother, or some coach at some time.

SPEAKER_04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So that ability gave me the opportunity to get to Seton Hall University, play some basketball, get but got cut immediately. I was five foot eight, everybody was six foot eight. And uh, but I went on to have to commute because I didn't have a scholarship from the town of Dunellan to South Orange, New Jersey. I worked part-time in an autoport store. And when I graduated, I went to work for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. And it was a blessing and somewhat an embarrassment. Uh in those days, they had a little bread truck-like thing. You had tires on top and you had batteries and fan belts in the in the middle of the truck. Right. So I would go from gas station to gas station and fill their blanks. But it was in my hometown area. And being one little bit of a state championship basketball situation and uh uh being known in the town, I was going to college. It was quite embarrassing for me to wear this little blue Goodyear outfit, and then but it paid off.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

So I went to work for Goodyear and I quickly got an advancement. And uh so I had never been out of the state of New York or New Jersey, and I won this contest. There's a TBA tire battery and sale and accessory sales, and I went to Arizona, to Wigwam. That was one of the perks they gave us. And they put me in a room, executives with wing-tipped shoes in those days, and they said, congratulations uh for the award, but we want to promote you to a store manager. But you're gonna make much much less money because you were on a commission basis before. This is a salary base. Well, I realized quickly that working for someone wasn't for me.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So I opened the tire company selling wholesale only with the good fortune of being able to get tires directly from a social Holland tire company called Fredestein. And uh I became their president in New York uh because we only had three types of uh uh automobiles that were done then. There were was a Volkswagen, a Triumph, and the MG.

SPEAKER_04

Everything else was American.

SPEAKER_01

For sure. And none of the tire companies would tool up because there was enough volume. So I had the good fortune to begin to import those tires, and that grew pretty quick. And uh that mushroomed quickly, and uh at the same time I um was a founding member of a national bank uh called Hillsborough National Bank and later sold to Bank America. I was 27 and at 29 because of my love for basketball, uh I had the the ability to be a minority owner of the New Jersey Nets. Um that lasted about five years and it was enjoyable. And then the NBA came to us and said that the league was failing the ABA and that they would take five of the cities into the NBA, but we had to trade Julius Irving to Philadelphia, and it would cost me a million dollars. And at that time I wasn't able to do that, but my love continued. Um with all my travels to Europe between um the tire companies, Continental and Germany and Pirelli and Italy and Holland with Freidestein, I was amazed at how little I knew about art and how much so many, or almost everyone, knew something about art. So I got a turned a kind of a passion and a business into a passion. I started buying more pieces and collecting, and before you knew it, um my interest in art was more important to me than the tire business. So I wound up getting rid of the tire business and starting an art gallery. And that started in a little small town called uh Lambertville, New Jersey. It's the weekend community for people in New York. It's about 70 miles away. And uh from there I took the opportunity to take a space on Madison Avenue in New York. And I at that time was specializing in a group called Cobra. That's an acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam. Being in those countries for so long and having that passion for art while I was in the tire business gave me a lot of experience. And I became a big fish in a little pond. Uh uh, I have there are 12 or 13 Cobra dealers. They started um in 1948 in Paris as a group, and they were there till 51, and there artists from Denmark, Belgium, and Holland. They were all alive at that time, older than me, but none of them have ever had any experience being in New York City with shows. Right. I was fortunate enough to bring them there. And at that time, you know, all also the warhol craze began. So I was fortunate enough to put the entire catalog resume of prints on a website. And uh of course, the Warhol Foundation tried to do something about it, but they couldn't. And it wasn't like it is today, the warholes were reasonable. Uh and then I went into the other pop artist and always keeping Cobra in my heart. And it grew and went to Paris. So the natural thing was because I was selling European art to be in Paris, the people around me were always good and great. And from there, we just went to Palm Beach because I had a buddy who was sick down here, and we came down to see him for a week and wound up staying for two months. And uh, I fell in love with Palm Beach, and uh New York is cold, so I wound up working in Palm Beach in the summer, a winter, excuse me, in New York in the spring and in the fall and the summer. Um, and uh then we had an opportunity to open Toronto with a wonderful partners in a powerful company called Inc. in Canada. And from there, uh the friendship developed to where they decided and asked me if if they would buy me out. That was five years ago. And it was okay, it was just before COVID time. And I told my children, if they ever saw me in a recliner watching daytime TV to shoot me on the spot, and that lasted. So I took a small office and I had this vision and this creation of uh doing something different in a kind of a museum-inspired gallery that I collected over 500 works in 50 years. Right. But at the same time, I had the good fortune to become a lecturer three times a year at Mar-a-Lago uh in Palm Palm Beach. Everyone who knows that's the current president's home. And uh it grew to where I would have um about 180 people at each lecture. And from there, uh my love for music was more important than art. And uh there was a radio is a radio station down here called Legends 100.3, and they played a great American songbook, Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, and I was raised with that. So I came up with the idea of taking a piece of artwork or an artist and speaking about it for about two or three minutes and then pairing an American song to it. So if I would talk about the Mona Lisa, I'd play Nat King Cole's Mona Lisa. Well, it grew to where I had 80 segments and uh it started educating quite a bit of people. And at that time I realized what I really wanted to do was to eliminate the pseudo-sophistication and the fear of the art dealer, and uh just teach art where people could enjoy it. I continue now with my lectures, I continue with the show. Um plug myself, but you can go to YouTube, the Art Legends Minute, uh Dom Tagliatella. 80 segments will appear, and uh you can have a good time listening to them. And uh I uh really enjoy doing it because when I start my lectures, I say two things. Uh those who continue to learn stay young. Those who stop learning get old. And it's amazing the older population in Palm Beach, how they continue in the Palm Beach area to learn. So that was joyful for me. And the other thing I believe is the three greatest gifts you can give someone are the gifts of art, music, and laughter. So I had the ability to combine those three. Absolutely while all of this was going on. I decided I'd take a small office in a building. They gave me comp block uh permission to do whatever I wanted, and that's how I have what I have today. And we're gonna have our grand opening with our neighbors in the building, including Daniel, on April 14th. And uh that's where I am right now, 85, healthy, and uh building another mountain.

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely, and it's great, and that's so much history that's great to impact with all your experience, Dom, and and thank you. Um, we do have, of course, uh the this podcast, this episode will launch to be in sequence with your gallery uh open house. So that'll be awesome to see.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sorry, but one thing I neglected uh um yeah, I uh I was a single parent child, and my mother was a seamstress. So we had in Harlem on East 122nd Street, we had two Catholic churches and two Catholic schools. And that was the time of the West Side story, the Italians and the Puerto Ricans. So the school stayed open till seven o'clock at night because they realized that most of the single parents couldn't take care of their kids. And then in the summer I had to go live with my uncle on aunt in Vegas. But um the school had such an impression, helped so many people, that uh when my mother passed away at 101. Uh there's a very famous restaurant in Harlem called Reos, and the owners, Frankie Pellegrino and I decided to do a foundation for minority children of single parents and pay the tuition for a certain amount of people. It was a private thing, and uh it was not really an expensive tuition situation, about $4,000 a year. So with my Palm Beach crowd and with uh Reyos name, we were ability to keep it going for about five years and raised about 800,000. So that was uh near to my heart.

SPEAKER_04

Terrific. Well, that's great that you were able to give back to the community in in some way, and you do it in other ways as well with your education part in the art. So that's great to hear, Dom. So I want to go back and and uh get a little bit more with the detail of how you found out or what skills you learned between going from a tire salesman and you were the salesman, and you mentioned that how um they gave you that salary position, which wasn't going to be more than what you could do as a salesman. What did you find that you really loved being a salesman and has traveled on through your career?

SPEAKER_01

Well, there's a little part in it I neglected. Um when I decided not to work for Goodyear, in those days there were wholesalers where you'd buy a 5,000 or 2,000 or 10,000 Firestones at a very low price, and then you had the ability to sell it to the smaller Firestone dealers, 50 or 100 tires for a very good price, what less than they could buy, let's say at Firestone. So I wound up with two people, and from being a salesman, the necessity for me to train people gave me the feeling about how much I like to educate. And when I left that situation, we had 52 salesmen on Watts lines, and I drove him crazy, I guess, because I'm a guy that loves meetings. And uh but it was a great thing, and I b began to realize that because we didn't have a TV in New York, my sister and I would listen to a radio station, WNEW. So music was so important because that was part of my life. And uh I began telling jokes, I think, when I was in my mother's womb. So uh, and uh most of my friends and my wife are sick and tired of hearing them, but I do get a new audience every once in a while. Absolutely. So my combination of the art, the music, and the laughter has blessed me and it's fulfilled my life. And uh so people drive I drive people crazy with did you hear this song? or why don't you know about Joseph Duvine and on and on. But you know, I'm right here. I'm gonna be here for a while, and when he the good Lord thinks I'm ready to go to the big art factory in the sky, I'm on my way. And who knows?

SPEAKER_04

Oh well, I hope you're here with us for many more years to come. Um as that process of going and establishing your own gallery, what were some of the challenges that you saw when you were initially starting out?

SPEAKER_01

Well what was fortunate that even though everybody talks about art as an investment, and one of my lectures in the early days was that, I now uh have changed the title to an alternative meth alternative approach to investing from stocks and bonds in real estate. Um I saw that there were less challenges because if you sold stock and bonds, you had to qualify with a series seven uh test or insurance, you'd need a a certificate or a test or selling real estate even. But anybody could open a gallery. And uh my important part was that I wanted the education that was more important for me, and I gained that education over having the passion over many years and reading constantly. So I was qualified to talk about art in a proper way. Believe me when I tell you, there are many, many art dealers that have not been to a museum in five years. Uh so that developed, and with my knowledge, when I was selling something, because in the world, in our world, nothing happens until something is sold. Uh an artist can't exist, uh, a museum can't exist, the a frame maker can't exist. We're the start of it all. So when I was able to talk history in a common sense way to people in America, and with my background of tra traveling to Europe, it gave me a little bigger edge and a better edge on what other people did. Right. And it made them more relaxed that they were talking to a professional, not someone who says, oh, this piece of art is going to go up in three years, which is a lot of baloney. Basically, art has a five-year trend, and you have to think of as a stock. Uh not everything you buy goes up. Right. But the secret is to buy something that is internationally traded in the big auction markets. And I mean, even small prints, uh 2,000, 1500, a Picasso, a Shigala, and they're not totally expensive, but they are limited editions. And you can find it when you do some research. And I tell couples that you Know once a year and spend it spending all this money on going to a theater for your anniversary, a Broadway show, eating in a great restaurant, go to a gallery, buy something, buy a catalog resume, uh, go out and have a nice glass of wine, and in 10 years, you're gonna find you're gonna have a nice library and you're gonna have a nice collection of art that does have the possibility of potential investment growth. But I never like to tell people that an emerging artist who's showing in Phoenix, Arizona, is gonna be nationally famous in 10 years. I don't have enough time to make myself famous. Never mind to try to make an artist famous.

SPEAKER_04

You're pretty famous.

SPEAKER_01

I thank you. But it's strictly an accident, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_04

And very humble too. That's great. Thanks. With the with this in terms of the artists that you mentioned, I mean you've you have all that, Shigama Picasso, but also the pop artists. And um what did you find as the trends that were going on in that moment that this made you go to sell those artists and represent some of the artists?

SPEAKER_01

I'd like to tell two things about that. First of all, uh everything's a survival in business. And you have to change with the times. I've always kept my basic love for Van Gogh, which I'm a specialist in, so they say. And uh of course, time went on you couldn't even buy a Van Gogh drawing. So you moved to the next level, and then you found in the 60s uh that uh the pop generation, Warhol Liechtenstein, became important. I also saw at that time that each generation seemed to have a different type of music. So when we were painting in the 1600s, 1700s, we had the minuet, minuet, whatever, and then we went on to expand it in the 50s with our famous jackstrack expressionist. Jackson Pollock painted to only jazz. Right. He was one of the few who had a Victrola, as we call it, or a phonograph. Today, uh at the Pollock Museum in the Hamptons, they have a complete section of all the albums and all his different phonographs. So art to me was always related. I realize that Kandinsky, most of his things included, art pieces included something about music. Uh so I believe that they go hand in hand, and the creativity is about the same. And it's only one thing. Uh it's really, really working hard. Now, I also was able to think about being able to tie my lesser-known or mid-career artist to the tales of a Picasso show, of a Chigal show. That would help. And I was successful in one situation. I have an artist called Russell Young. He paints with a thing called diamond dust. And when I first started promoting him about 18 years ago, everybody would say, oh, it looks just like a Warhol. Now people look at it and know exactly that it's a Russell Young. So I think the claim for success is individuality and being known wherever you're seen. So if you closed your eyes and you said Picasso, 80% of the public would know what something looked like, Picasso or Van Gogh. Right. And when an artist finally reaches that point and stays with the particular subject and doesn't move around for the sake of saleability, and you find him in another place, or even if you were in a gallery and you saw his work and you went someplace else and you knew immediately it was him, that I think is one of the keys to getting, I hate to use the word famous, but better known.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Awesome. Well, that's uh definitely some important thing to consider. Um what did you find as a key consideration when you're dealing with a potential client or a patron of the arts? Like how do you get them interested and motivated or some things that you have to essentially educate them on?

SPEAKER_01

This is this is a very, very difficult question because it involves a lot of ego and it involves a lot of how think how smart we think we are. So let's take an example. I'll pay $100,000 for a booth at the Art Fair in Basel, and I can put up 22 pieces. So I think I'm smart enough that I can pick 22 pieces that somebody is going to buy. So I learned the most difficult thing to do is to cut people open and put yourself inside them. You have to go with the flow. But even then, I tell most art dealers that you have better odds of taking that $100,000 and going to Vegas and putting it on black or red. You have to remember, no one says, Oh, let's put the kids in a car this morning and go visit Uncle Dom and buy a Picasso. It it's a rarefied situation. Bringing it down to common sense uh makes a big difference. People who are wealthy, many, many, many of them for the most part, because there are very few collectors, want to do something, but they feel uncomfortable. And I bring in my background and I teach them a little bit, and uh it happens that seven out of ten of them begin to have a love for art. And the worst thing you can do is take a passion and turn it into a business. And I did that because in many occasions I have a painting for five or six or eight years, and then one day somebody wants to buy it, and I sell it and I go home sad, and my wife says, Why are you so sad? I said, I guess because I missed the painting already. It's like selling one of my children. But when somebody waves a big check in front of you, you forget about your children.

SPEAKER_04

You gotta take the money and run. When you had your your galleries as Tagliatele galleries in all these different places, New York and Toronto, Palm Beach and Paris, what were some things that you saw as different in the art markets in each place? Or did you see you know more similarities than differences?

SPEAKER_01

There were distinct differences, as there was, again, back to music. Um, when I went to Holland, they only played Dutch TV for five hours a day. When I went to Germany, it was a different TV. There was an individualization that connected to their past and their history and their background. Uh, I saw Europe change when I started s turning on the TV and watching MTV and then CNN. So it became a global musical and economical situation. So what happens is when I first started going there, I really and truly thought that Norman Rockwell was Norman Vincent Peel. That's how little I knew. But I was amazed walking along the canals of Amsterdam and seeing small homes, everybody had a piece of artwork of some kind. And and I could see that they had that that feeling, and it grew with me, and uh I began to learn about art in those countries. But the biggest difference was that like Americans, we eat to live, we eat for fuel. In Europe, they l eat uh they live to eat. You're not I mean, sorry, the other way. They eat to live and we live to eat. And uh so I also saw that their educational level was almost so art involved in a in a way like we were interested in baseball, they were kind of interested in art. You have to remember this country is two hundred and fifty years old. Right. Uh that's that a long time. You know, we we we we we're way behind when it comes to the international fine art situation. We weren't even around when Rembrandt was painting or or or Rem Fermiere. So it we're we're behind, but we're catching up. But we're more trendy. Uh, we go with the flow, and they are more stayed in place with accepting their art or all mostly Dutch art. You have to remember you say a little thing called Dutch art, but you know, a lot of big hitters came out of there. You're talking about Rembrandt, you're talking about Van Gogh, you're talking about um the um Rubens, on and on, because at that time the borderline between Holland and Belgium was not there. There was a lot more Belgium that was Holland. So the Brabant, so the period is important. And when you read the history of an artist, that's really important. I try to give my clients a book, something spicy, My Life with Picasso, uh De Kooning, coming to America. Uh, when you read about them, you historically become part of them. So if you have even a poster on your wall with Van Gogh, and you know his famous story like most do about the ear, and it becomes more than just a piece of artwork. So history about an artist is as important as the piece itself because you never get bored with it. You think about something was done in their life. Today's world, the internet, you how much does it cost? How fast can I sell it? And how much money can I make? And sometimes I've sold a $200,000 painting, and the person refused to even pick up a phone. They just wanted to do everything by email or texting. And as I said before, you should buy a piece of artwork, you and your mate, and uh have a glass of wine and know who the person was. But I don't think there's anything colder than buying a piece of art and not even having an idea if it was a gallery, if it was a toy store, wherever it came from. That void is dramatic for me. Art is important as the history around it that applies to you. You need to know the person that you spoke with. You need to be able to go back and see him sometime. You need to develop a friendship. You can't do any of that on the internet.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it's very difficult. And that way, you know, people will also they'll just buy the piece of art and they'll put it in storage and you know, not even transport it across lines and countries for tax purposes, and that's always something that's interesting, right?

SPEAKER_01

Aaron Powell Yeah, I wish they realized that um um art is not oil or gas or pajamas or underwear. Um art is something, and eliminating tariffs uh on everything, but not the things that educate your your country the most is kind of sad. Yeah. And uh that Brazil has a 50% tariff on art. Wow. Uh that's pretty hard to gain international awareness in Brazil. You have to pay twice as much for a piece of artwork if you bought it in America. Uh we could speak here for hours because that's what I like to do, but uh I want to tell you a story that when I started teaching uh long time ago, I went to four different universities, uh University of Delaware, Rutgers, of course, my alma mater, Seton Hall, and and uh Mammoth College. Yes. And I would teach to graduating class in art history one lesson only. And uh I would start and tell them that there are about 250,000 graduates in art history, but there are about 4,000 jobs. So if your family didn't donate a wing or painting, the odds are you're getting into it. And over 90% of the galleries are mama, papa, their husband and wife. So there's not a lot of ability. Right. And if you're gonna do that, you're not gonna go to Columbia, South Carolina, uh, because there are no art dealers to work for. So you wind up heading to the big cities. Yeah. And I tell them when they come to New York, they have to remember that on their campus at the Smoky Joe's Inn, you pay $8 for a glass of wine. In New York City, you're gonna start at 20. And also that because there are so many available people to pick from, you really have to be great and even start at a low price because we have our our pick of the pool. Right. And uh uh I also tell them that when they wake up in the morning in New York, uh, when you open your eyes, some imaginary man takes a hundred dollars from you. So I want them to know that. Uh sadly, I don't want to discourage them to know that cream comes to the top, and you have to pay your price in the art world as you do in any other corporate type thing. So you have to go from an intern, you've got to prove yourself in sales, it's the same thing, but somehow we don't think of it as a corporate entity. But it is, and getting a job is a good thing like anything else. But knowing that you had to take step after step after step to be a VP of a company, you have to do the same in the art world. So if you continue to read, continue to go to museums, continue to go to art galleries, that's your educational process for increasing. I think so many people decide they want to be in the art world, but many people forget it's not the art world, it's the art business. So business is always involved, but we're so lucky that we can sell someone that they can think about us forever, they can tell their children about that, and five or six percent or fifteen percent of the people that come into their home, young people, friends, are influenced by what's going on. And and I think that's real important that people remember if you like a piece of artwork, get it on your wall, enjoy it, buy a couple of catalogs, learn as much as you can about art.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

If you're gonna buy art to match the couch, then you better learn a lot about the couch salesman.

SPEAKER_04

That's very true. Um and you are such an expert on many different art movements, but uh I do think, as people will attest, that you are such an expert on Van Gogh. And I'd like to get to know a little bit about what your uh affiliation and interest in the artist was, as also as you can give us a little bit of the backstory on your interest in in graveyards, which I know has uh has a tie to it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, first of all, people say that I'm an art historian, but I'm really a storyteller of art history. I like to amuse the crowd, I like to make it on their level. Of course, my first travels were to Holland. So naturally, it's the Van Gogh or the Rembrandt situation, and I read insatiably about it, and uh I re I looked at the different periods, the Brabant period, uh people remember that he painted the peasants in the fields. It didn't paint him at that time, he was only drawing.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So you developed a particular interest, and I think the reason that I might be a bit interesting is that I know these little facts about um artists, and this is enough to make somebody get an interest. For instance, Frida Kelo, uh, I tell my little three-minute thing that she had a tragic life. She was married to Diego Rivera, uh, had a but terrible bus crash, was in constant pain. She dies at 47, and um she is now recognized as a national treasure. She's only painted 200, she only painted 200 paintings in her lifetime, and Mexico consider her an icon, and you can't they you can't export or buy any paintings in Mexico to export. So these little facts are enough, I hope, to spark someone into looking a little more. So when I give my lectures, I put out give them a list of about 10 or 12 um movies that they should watch. Uh My Life with Picasso, um The Van Gogh, you know, The Brothers, and just so many more Modigliani. And they're great movies, and they tell a great history, not only of the artist, the art, but the period of time. So you get yourself a triple situation when you're doing that. So that was a gr a great way for me to understand it, and I figured I wasn't that smart, so people could use my method and really enjoy it.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_04

And your interests with the with the graveyards that I know you mentioned in one of your lectures.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, um a lot of people neglect the idea that people are going to die. Their paintings live on forever, but they do die. And I find that most of the place where famous artists were buried are very, very spiritual and not very loud and selling toys and whatever. So Van Gogh, for instance, died in the town of Auvert, which is only 30 miles from um uh Paris by train. He lived his last 80 days there. And uh it's almost a monument spiritually of Van Gogh. Every piece he painted 80 paintings in 78 days. He was buried there, about a mile from where he painted the crows over the wheat field. So if you read something about somebody, you become almost himself. And when you go to the graveyard, it's it's not just seeing it, it's really thinking about what the man did or what the woman did in their life. An interesting thing about Van Gogh, his brother Theo supported him all his life. Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime. And uh his brother constantly gave him money. And when Van Gogh died, they buried him in Auvergne. His brother died and they buried him in Amsterdam, and uh ten years later they exhumed his brother and put him next to Vincent. And uh so it's it's quiet, it's peaceful, and it gives me thought. Um, the famous cemetery in Paris, Che Le Pair, is known for even Jim Morrison being there. Edith Piaf, the singer, is uh Beethoven, almost every major artist you can think of. So it's a trip through the past silently. So it's almost like going to Normandy to see the the amount of crosses there and how great the Parisians and the French have treated that. And it's a beautiful place. And I think for the most part, graveyards are well taken care of as a respect to the people who are living there and dead. And uh it's crazy, but I think it's uh it gives you a little bit of time to think and a little spirituality, and it really adds to the total picture of someone that you've admired and read about, and the ending is in a grave and you're there.

SPEAKER_04

Totally. It's a connection point that you get, right? And that point of reflection.

SPEAKER_00

For sure.

SPEAKER_04

Um a lot of what uh story with Van Gogh also makes me think that it's kind of like uh a good idea for for a musical like Sondheim's Sunday in the park with George, right?

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know, so many movies have been done about Kurt Douglas's famous uh, you know, lust but uh the best one is the BBC black and white called Vincent and Theo. And uh you need to take a real cold shower before you before you watch it. It's a tough one.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But yes, um knowing the artist and knowing it where where about his life and where he traveled to, many people don't know that. Uh, and I have never done a talk on this. I've begun his Rabond period when he was a kid, his cousin taught him how to draw, then the Arles period, the four different periods Van Gogh had. But uh a lot of people don't don't recognize that as one. And I think when you start looking at artists, you can see that the the the amount of effort and time they put in. Right. And you know, we only know the bad sides of artists. And Michael Adler, was he gay? Well, no, he wasn't. Was uh was uh he poor? No, he was like a major corporation when he died. Um did he have assistance? Yes. Uh did he have a woman in his life? Yes. So everything that we hear, these short things about famous artists. So little facts make you want to learn more. For instance, this the sculpture of David by Michael and Joe Answell. It was marble that they gave him as the state to use that was rejected by many other sculptors. It is so big and so heavy that it took twenty six days to move it one mile. And and it's in the academia now, and I could go on with story after story, and this is when you become interested in that. I mean, you want to read about Sonny Bono or Cher, that's good too. You want to read about Microsoft and um whatever, Bill Gates. They're all great stories, but all of it really came down to the same thing, a work ethic. Yeah. Nobody gets to be famous for their lifetime and for people to know them for many years after, unless they really put that 10,000 hours into their job.

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely. And uh you you you put so much effort into your jobs as well. When you had that transition and were able to sell your original Tagliatella galleries and then moved on to TFA Fine Art, um, what's something that stood out to you about that process?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's an important process, both for the people who work in that category and the owners. Uh when you have a job, you may have hours. And uh as you get more powerful in a corporation, you'll have more hours. But the art business isn't a business, it's a way of life. It's social. You you eat good food, you drink good wine, you have the ability to travel, to meet different people from different countries that come into your gallery. So I tell people it's a way of life. So we don't have a time clock. Socially, it the openings happen at night. The museums now have activities at night. It's a 24-hour job. You wake up with it and you fall asleep with it. Uh I'm now in this new vision that I'm building, and I'm not a kid by sh for sure. But I noticed that I'm the only person in this building on Saturday, and I'm also noticed that probably the only one that's here after 5 o'clock. So it's not a job for me. Uh well, uh my wife understands it, thank God, because I work and I start working and I don't realize it's 7:30 at night. Yeah. Because what I'm doing is not a job, it's a passion. Every time I do something about an artist, because of my background and learning about them, I feel like they're sitting next to me.

SPEAKER_04

Totally. I'm sure this would be a very tough question to answer, but do you have a favorite piece of art that you sold?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's say which one of your kids is do you like the best? Well, I have to say this that um I have three questions that I ask people, and uh they're tough questions for first is if you were on a desert island and you only could take one painting, what would you take? The second is, and this is much harder than you think, if you were on that same desert island and you only could take 50 songs, what would you take? And the third one is if you are on a desert island and me liking food so much, uh-huh what four courses would you take? So it's very, very hard. The music once I have a friend named Steve Tyrell who's a very well-known singer, pretty famous. We were driving home from a Grapefruit League game here with the Yankees, and I said, Steve, if uh you could only take 50 songs on the desert island, what would you take? And he's a southern boy, and he said, That's easy. I'd just take all my Ray Charles music. And when I thought about that, that was that would be true. So I think I'd have to take uh a piece of artwork that had so much history around it that I knew of the individual who painted it that would keep me going. So I guess if it would be Picasso, probably more than likely Van Gogh, but there are a lot of other people that I love it so hard. But I guess I would probably take Van Gogh's uh story story night because Don McClain, who wrote the song, must have really understood Vincent. Yeah, because when you hear the lyrics, uh they're powerful.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And it's a very long song. And the the sheep ro rock uh sheep music is buried in a time capsule under the Van Gogh Museum. So uh it's pretty powerful. So I probably would take Starry Story Night uh as the piece. And his night paintings, he only did twelve, and one of them they analyzed at the astrology museum or something in Washington, D.C. and found out that the night he painted that painting, the stars were exactly in that position. So it's a lot of interesting things. The biggest thing I could tell people is don't be fearful. Don't be don't be intimidated. If you walk into a gallery and they start talking about selling this and this and this, this girl walks up with a get out of there, go to a museum, enjoy the day, or go to a gallery and and be able to not be accosted. Right. And that's almost the same any place else. You go to buy a suit, uh, you know. So the other thing I have to say is I don't know, but for some reason, we're picked on. If you go to buy a nice Brione suit and $7,000, you don't ask the guy for 20% off. I remember the famous chef Danielle. I had a $70,000 war hall, and he he said, I'll give you $40,000. And I said, Let me ask you, Daniel, when I come into one of your restaurants to start, do I ask for 10% off on the Fra Wa? Well, why is it only the art industry that people expect to get a discount?

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01

You don't go to Macy's, you don't go any place unless it's on sale, but you're not going to say, hey, I want to I want a better price on this pair of shoes.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

So it's treated as a commodity in some degree, but it's also treated as a game that you play.

SPEAKER_04

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's very interesting. And well, you manage it very, very successfully and very um professionally, and that's great to to see how you do it.

SPEAKER_01

Well, let me say two things, Daniel, before we we close off here. Yeah. The secret that I found, and I haven't been able to do it, is if you're a businessman, the secret is if you can run your business rather than have your business run you, it makes life a lot easier. And most of us as business owners can't. And uh the other thing is that you really have heard this cliche a million times, but you really have to like and love what you do. That comes with an enormous amount of different problems. You miss a couple of kids at Little League games, uh, you tell your wife you're coming home at seven o'clock for dinner, somebody comes into my gallery interested in buying something, I'm there till 9:30. But I never ever once thought of it as a job. I thought about it every time I touched a piece of art that somebody would want to buy it, and then I could tell my story.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

And so it's also people return all the time. One of the sa failures in the art business is you sell somebody something, a piece of artwork, and they become your friend.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And then they assume that you don't sell art anymore, and they borrow art from everybody else, but you go out to dinner with them all the time.

SPEAKER_04

There you go. Well, we are wrapping up. Uh, here's a question that I ask everybody on the show to date. What has been your best investment personally and professionally?

SPEAKER_00

Boy, that's tough.

SPEAKER_01

I guess real estate because I've bought so much off and on. I was never a stock person.

SPEAKER_03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01

I've made a lot of money in pieces of art that I bought for 500, I saw for 50,000. Yeah. But I also have a lot of art that I bought for 50,000 that I can't sell for 5,000. Gotcha. So I would say um through necessity, having to buy real estate, because again, major cities are where art galleries are, art buyers, and the rents are enormous. Yeah. So when you have an opportunity to buy a piece of property, uh, it helps. So it also helps for your future financing, because in the art world, you cannot borrow art money at a bank from art because it's portable. Yeah. You can take it under your arm, sell it any place. Right. There's just no social security number needed. So a lot of crazy things happen with art, and the bankers are aware. And when they ask you for a pro form or a cash flow or projection, we don't know. Somebody comes in in April's and buys a hundred thousand dollar painting. I'm not going to say the same guy's coming next year to buy a painting. So you can't get a reading.

SPEAKER_03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01

So, but when that real estate behind you, it kind of keeps you financed through what you want to do. And I tell people, you know how you make a million dollars in the art business. You start with two million and you leave with a million.

SPEAKER_04

It's very similar to a Richard Branson quote about how to become a millionaire. Begin as a billionaire and then open an airline company. There you go. Well, I've asked you a lot of questions, but now you got to ask yourself one. Do you know how that's going to work?

SPEAKER_01

Nope, not yet.

SPEAKER_04

You get to pick a question out of a fishbowl.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, boy.

SPEAKER_04

Random questions. They're all generally kind of fun stuff. Reach it into the microphone, please.

SPEAKER_01

It says, meet me in room six at 530. No, just kidding, guys. That's part of my musical laughter. What does success look like to you?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_00

Well, here's what success looks like to me.

SPEAKER_01

Uh I have a table at a restaurant called Ray's. Yes. And it's a very, very rare commodity. And I auction it off sometimes. Uh one table for my month. I have a monthly.

SPEAKER_03

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, and I get between ten and fifteen thousand dollars for my foundation. Nice. Um there's a gentleman who's very, very famous. I hope he doesn't mind my saying this is his name is Ken Langone, Home Depot, and he's got hospitals and wherever. So Ken does not have a table like most people. So the statement is, he always says to me, that if you don't sell it for 10,000, I'll take it. And then I read a few other stories, you know, about if they're true or not, but I think he something about he gave his kids $10 or $20 million and said, if you can't make it on that, tough luck. Right. So he has become a great philanthropic person. And I think the answer to success is to give back as much as you can and still maintain a life structure that you enjoy.

unknown

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Greed is a tough word. Right. And I think if people get involved in things that are so important, they have the money to help it in a major way, to be again a big fish in a little pond. The Red Cross, of course, need money. Everybody does. But there are a lot of soup kitchens, there are a lot of things that you can feel the results instantly. And I think the key to success is to being able to pass on your good good fortune to other people.

SPEAKER_04

That's terrific advice, and uh I love it. Um and do you have a suggestion for a future guest on our on our show on the real estate of the investment?

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know, we have this famous shark tank, so we have the Corcoran girl there.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But there's a guy in town, and I hope he doesn't mind me saying it, who's pretty good in his mowens. You know, he's involved in the the Navy SEALs. Uh he's a great buyer of art, and uh he's really a nice man. And I guess he's probably the the most famous on our island for real estate. I think that man has a diversity and could have a lot to say about a lot of things.

SPEAKER_04

We'll try and see if we can get him on the show. Um, and it is now time for the shameless plug. So, what's you're working on right now? You've got your TFA fine art. How can people find you? And uh anything that you want to share with them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So finding me was a problem. I was a spoiled brat and I know nothing about technology. So I always had four or five people helping me. When I sold all my locations, it was me, and I was in the COVID time, so I really stayed away from the art business for four years. And uh I guess to get it known again, my lectures at Mar-a-Largo make it easy for me because I have a little reputation.

SPEAKER_04

And they're great.

SPEAKER_01

And on the international level, I'm fortunate because I was always a dealer's dealer. So when I got something that replied applied to Denmark, yeah, I I had all of those things. So I guess uh I had a mailing list of 13,000 with my other company, Taglia Tella, and I felt that it was my obligation not to pirate them, and also I am building one now. And uh I've got this vision and dream of mine 80, 90 percent completed, and that we're gonna have our opening April 14th. And by that time, I'll stop building and start selling again.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

I want to say one more thing. I learned a lesson at my age about three months ago. We have a floor that Daniel and I are here, and it's more like a fraternity floor. Dorms. We're talking to each other, we enjoy each other, and you learn from everybody. And it's a a friend of mine who's a friend of all of us, and Robert Slater is a CPA, and uh he said, Dom, let me tell you something. Your problem is you strive for a hundred percent all the time. And he said, What you want to do is realize that 85% of something is 98% of 85%. But Daniel is here and he sees me. I change a wall every day because not happy what's on the wall. And I don't know if I'm gonna be able to change, but I think that that that's the key. Right. Try to get your business to run itself, not run you.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And uh find people like Daniel and add them to your life. And uh uh it's never too late to get new friends. And my ability in the art world, that's very easy to do.

SPEAKER_04

And add Dom to your list of friends because he's great and uh they can reach out to you by appointment to come visit the gallery.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, it's by appointment only because uh I get up late now, and uh the variance here is no retail, which we don't do, but you can come by appointment. Now we're gonna get very aggressive with our marketing so people know I'm back in the game. Uh I have Mar-Lago that gives me a big plug every three months for my uh my lectures. Uh I've had the local newspaper write it. So my situation is I've got to get people to know I'm back in the game.

SPEAKER_04

And they will. And hopefully this podcast can help as well. Uh and and to and can we have one of your famous jokes?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, one of my famous jokes. Okay. We've got to use the clean version. Because most of them are not clean. But uh boy, that's that's will you imagine stumping me on a joke that I could tell that's universal. Wow. So anyway, this art dealer dies and he goes to heaven. And St. Peter says, Welcome, we've been waiting for you. And uh he said, We're gonna take you to your room. And they're walking down a hallway, and he looks on the left, and there's a pope with the basic wash bucket and just a small iron bed, and he's shaking, what's going on? And across the hall is a cardinal, two up is a saint, two more popes. They finally get to his room, and there's this lavish room with a a jacuzzi, a 70-inch TV, and uh uh he looks at him and says, Saint Peter, I don't understand this. We've passed many popes, cardinals, uh saints, and they have these small basic rooms. Why do I get this lavish room? He said, Well, we have a lot of popes up here, but you're the first art dealer.

SPEAKER_04

Uh oh. Well, that's uh that's a good one. And uh we know we're we'll see Dom up there soon. And one of these days he'll he'll have that lavish room as well.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'm gonna try something one of these days when um Daniel gets going with this thing. I'm gonna interview him and let's hear what he has to say.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, see, we'll see. I have some questions right here, but I we can definitely try that. Um right, Dom. Thank you so much. I want to thank you so much for your time, Dom, and being such a wonderful guest and giving you another one of the. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for sharing your journey, your experience, and being such a wonderful guest. And thank you so much for being here with us. Join me again next time with another amazing interview on the real estate and investment show with Daniel Clavito. Hello. I'm Daniel Clavito Tillman. Say awesome, everyone, and God bless America.