MySQL query from python (django app) taking very long to execute

Question

I have 3 mysql (innodb) tables, 2 of which (called fineart_artworks and fineart_lots) have more than 1.6 million records each. The third table (called fineart_artists) has approx 570K records. I am creating the following view in order to extract some data from these 3 tables:

create or replace view featured_artists as 
select fa.fa_artist_ID as artist_id, 
 fa.fa_artist_name as artist_name, 
 fal.fal_lot_sale_price_USD as artist_price_usd, 
 fa.fa_artist_name_prefix as prefix, 
 fa.fa_artist_nationality as nationality, 
 fa.fa_artist_birth_year as birthyear, 
 fa.fa_artist_death_year as deathyear, 
 fa.fa_artist_description as description, 
 fa.fa_artist_aka as aka, 
 fa.fa_artist_bio as bio, 
 fa.fa_artist_image as artistimage, 
 fa.fa_artist_genre as genre 
from fineart_artists fa, fineart_artworks faa, fineart_lots fal 
where fa.fa_artist_ID=faa.faa_artist_ID 
 and faa.faa_artwork_ID=fal.fal_artwork_ID;

This query takes about 12-15 secs to execute. After this, I am running the following query to actually get some data:

select artist_id, artist_name, sum(artist_price_usd) as price, prefix, 
 nationality, birthyear, deathyear, description, aka, bio,
 artistimage, genre 
from featured_artists 
where artistimage is not NULL and artistimage != '' 
group by artist_id 
order by price desc;

This is taking about 5 minutes to execute. Sometimes even more than that. I am a python developer, and have a basic understanding of relational databases. However, I am not able to figure out why these queries are taking so long. I have worked with mysql databases before, and some of them were just as large, but it never took more than 30-40 secs to execute, even in resource starved systems (with 4GB memory). Any solution/workaround or pointer in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Should you need more information, please just ask. I will provide you with whatever information you need.