Collecting advice from an expert: Sotheby’s contemporary auction specialist Courtney Kremers

Courtney Kremers
Sotheby’s

AUCTIONS ARE BIG BUSINESS WITH EVER INCREASING INTEREST AND PARTICIPATION FROM ALL CORNERS OF THE WORLD. THANKS TO THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE ART MARKET AND THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF ART BOOSTED BY INSTAGRAM IN PARTICULAR AND SOCIAL MEDIA IN GENERAL, AND BY THE HEADLINE MAKING SUMS THAT ARE BEING REALIZED, EVERYONE FINDS THIS AN INTRIGUING SUBJECT TO FOLLOW WHETHER THEY ARE COLLECTORS OR NOT. THE COMPETITION BETWEEN HOUSES IS FIERCE AND THIS WEEK, IN NEW YORK, PRESENTS MANY OPPORTUNITIES TO PROVE THESE POINTS.

Claude Monet
Meules
Sotheby’s May 2019

ON TUESDAY OF THIS WEEK, SOTHEBY’S TRIUMPHED, OPENING THE NEW YORK AUCTION WEEK, WITH THEIR IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN SALE. ARTnews DESCRIBES IT AS SUCH:

Powered by a stunning Claude Monet landscape that doubled its estimate and elicited hearty applause in the grand salesroom, Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern evening sale in New York on Tuesday galloped to a market-affirming $349.9 million tally.

Only five of the 55 lots offered failed to sell, yielding a svelte buy-in rate by lot of 9.1 percent.

The buoyant result surged past pre-sale expectations of $252.6 million to $333.2 million. Those estimates do not include the buyer’s premium. (The hammer tally for the evening, before fees, was $300.5 million.)

The total also shot past last May’s $318.3 million result for the 32 lots that sold. The top lot at that sale was Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu couché (sur le côté gauche), 1917, which fetched $157.2 million, making it the most expensive work ever to sell at Sotheby’s.

Tuesday’s auction ranks as the highest-earning Impression-modern evening sale at Sotheby’s since one in May 2015 that took in $368 million.

http://www.artnews.com/2019/05/15/sothebys-imp-mod-monet-meules-record/

Hans Hofmann

BEFORE WORKS CAN REACH THE DAZZLING HEIGHTS OF THE AUCTION WORLD, THEY MUST FIRST BE ACQUIRED BY PRIVATE COLLECTORS AND THAT TAKES CAREFUL DELIBERATION, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE AS WELL AS THE GOOD FORTUNE OF A GREAT EYE AND/OR A GREAT ADVISOR.

TODAY, THE LRFA BLOG IS DELIGHTED TO HAVE SOTHEBY’S SPECIALIST, SENIOR VP, COURTNEY KREMERS, TO SHARE HER ASTUTE INSIGHTS ON THE ART OF COLLECTING.

COURTNEY, WELCOME BACK! THE LRFA BLOG IS VERY HAPPY TO HAVE YOU HERE.

SOME COLLECTORS, SUCH AS THE MUGRABIS,  FOCUS ON A HANDFUL OF ARTISTS, BUYING NUMEROUS EXAMPLES OF WORK FROM ALL PERIODS OF THE ARTIST’S CAREER, THUS CONTROLLING TO SOME EXTENT THE MARKET FOR THE WORK?

WHAT IN YOUR OPINION ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND THE DISADVANTAGES?

There is a big difference between trying to control an artist’s market, by acquiring a significant number of works, and collecting an artist in depth. The pros/cons of this strategy are no different than having undiversified risk in any other asset class. It is high risk, high reward.

Lucio Fontana

WHEN YOU ARE WORKING WITH A RELATIVELY NEW AND UNSEASONED COLLECTOR, WHAT IS THE BEST ADVICE THAT YOU CAN GIVE THEM?

Collecting involves a careful balance of restraint and gut. At the beginning, the formula should be weighted toward restraint and research, but as you develop a real eye, gut becomes a crucial part of the equation.

HOW DO YOU EDUCATE THE POTENTIAL COLLECTOR IN THE ART OF COLLECTING? WHAT ARE THE PRIMARY CRITERIA AND GUIDELINES DO YOU GIVE THEM?

It isn’t only about buying what you love. For an unseasoned collector, that advice can be a recipe for disaster, or at the very least, for overpaying. The word, “love”, is also confusing to collectors, because what does that mean when it comes to art? Your relationship with an object can grow from something that first would be described as discomfort, because it gets under your skin, stays with you, challenges something you thought you knew. In other words, the reaction to a great object doesn’t always start out as positive experience in a traditional sense, but it can evolve into that. Aside from the gut reaction you feel, which is what makes collecting so emotionally rewarding, you should always ask questions and understand what you are buying, how the work fits into the artist’s overall body of work, what the condition is, which galleries support the artist, which museums have shown the artist, etc. The list of questions is long and you should consider the answers to each one.

Sam Francis

YOU WORKED FOR KIM HIERSTON, WHOM I LIKE AND ADMIRE, IN HER ART ADVISORY FIRM.  WHAT WERE YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES?

Tons of research, among other things. Kim is extremely thorough and disciplined about every artwork she puts forward for a collector’s consideration. It was an information gathering operation first, art advisory second; you can’t advise unless you have all the facts. We spent a lot of time reviewing the artworks on offer through galleries, at art fairs, and in the auctions, and then thinking about how those works might fit into a particular client’s collection, and if so, what the right price was. Once an acquisition was made, we handled all the back end logistics that come with building an art collection – insurance, shipping, framing, conservation. It was a soup to nuts job.

George Condo

WHAT WERE THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS YOU LEARNED WHEN WORKING AS AN ADVISOR?  YOU MUST INTERACT WITH A GREAT MANY ADVISORS NOW, AS A SPECIALIST AT SOTHEBY’S. WHAT CHARACTERIZES THE BEST AND THE WORST OF THEM?

There are advisors who do their own research and who spend a considerable amount of time looking at art and understanding the objects, and then there are advisors who just repeat what they hear elsewhere. The parrots are just that, parrots.

NB- THE WORKS ILLUSTRATED IN THIS BLOG (EXCEPT THE MONET) ARE FORTHCOMING LOTS IN THE SOTHEBY’S CONTEMPORARY DAY SALE, ON FRIDAY, MAY 17th.

IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG, COURTNEY WILL SPEAK ABOUT LIFE AT SOTHEBY’S IN THIS AGE OF COLLECTING. WE CAN’T WAIT!

Ellery Kurtz, dealer and appraiser of American Art, on the collector profile

Edward Hopper
Early Sunday Morning
Whitney Museum of American Art

IN JANUARY 2018, SEPH RODNEY, WRITING FOR HYPERALLERGIC.COM, ASKED AND ANSWERED “IS ART MUSEUM ATTENDANCE DECLINING IN MANY MUSEUMS ACROSS THE US?”  THERE ARE SIGNS THAT ATTENDANCE IN MANY MUSEUMS ACROSS THE COUNTRY IS SLOWLY FALLING BUT THE REASONS WHY ARE STILL TO BE DETERMINED. ART AND CULTURE MUSEUMS MAY BE IN TROUBLE. STATISTICAL EVIDENCE COMING OUT OF THE SCENE IN BALTIMORE, WHICH SEEMS TO BE FINDING CORROBORATION NATIONWIDE, CONVEYS A NARRATIVE OF MUSEUM VISITING BEING ON THE DOWNTREND.

THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT PEOPLE ARE BECOMING LESS INCLINED TO VISIT MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES, AND FOR THOSE OF US WHO ARE INVESTED IN THESE INSTITUTIONS AS ONE OF THE KEY BULWARKS AGAINST THE ENCROACHING COLONIZATION OF CIVIC SPACE AND ENGAGEMENT BY THE RELENTLESS COMMODIFICATION OF EXPERIENCE,THIS IS DISPIRITING NEWS.

THE GALLERIES, EXCEPT FOR A HANDFUL OF “UBER-GALLERIES” SUCH AS DAVID ZWIRNER, PACE AND GAGOSIAN ARE EXPERIENCING A SIMILAR DECLINE OF VISITORS, AS REPORTED IN ARTNET IN JULY 2018 BY RACHEL CORBETT.

TODAY, DEALERS SAY THEY NO LONGER VIEW PHYSICAL GALLERIES AS THE PRIMARY SITE OF SALES AND NETWORKING. INSTEAD, THEY NAME ART FAIRS AS THE NUMBER ONE VENUE FOR MEETING NEW CLIENTS, FOLLOWED BY THE INTERNET, ACCORDING TO TEFAF’S 2017 ART MARKET REPORT. NEARLY A THIRD OF DEALERS EXPECT TO DO EVEN FEWER SALES AT GALLERIES IN THE FUTURE, THE REPORT SAYS—AND THEY EXPECT GREATER DROPS IN THIS AREA THAN IN ANY OTHER, INCLUDING PRIVATE SALES, AUCTIONS, ONLINE SALES, AND FAIRS.

https://hyperallergic.com/421968/is-art-museum-attendance-declining-across-the-us/

https://news.artnet.com/market/foot-traffic-galleries-new-york-1318769

IN TODAY’S LRFA BLOG POST, AMERICAN ART GALLERIST AND APPRAISER ELLERY KURTZ WILL ADD HIS INSIGHT TO THE CURRENT TREND AS IT APPLIES TO THE AMERICAN MARKET.

Robert Henri
Mary Fanton Roberts
Metropolitan Museum of Art

ELLERY, WELCOME BACK!

HOW DO YOU ACCOUNT FOR THE DOWNWARD TREND IN THE AMERICAN ART MARKET AND DO YOU SEE IT REBOUNDING AND WHY OR WHY NOT?

Younger generations want more modern material. Today’s younger generations of the Millennials, GenX are a sharing society.  They rent rather than own, whether it is a place to live or a car.  They enjoy without actually possessing.  Galleries and museums put their inventory and exhibitions online which stops people from actually going to see the artwork.  If you are looking for…say a Robert Henri painting, you don’t have to physically go from gallery to gallery anymore.  You only need to look at various websites to see who actually has something available.  This is, in my opinion, one of the things that affects the market most. It stops collectors from experiencing the true thrill of the treasure hunt.  Walking into a gallery and “discovering” a painting on the wall or in a back room stacked among others.  You may find your Henri on a website, but you miss seeing the amazing George Luks that the gallery has not yet put on its site or has held back for one reason or another. You miss seeing the texture, brushstrokes, true colors, and impact of size. It is a total disconnect from the paintings themselves.  The acquisition of a work of art should be purely personal and up close experience.

George Luks
Street Scene (Hester Street)
Brooklyn Museum

WHAT WOULD YOU ADVISE A YOUNG EMERGING COLLECTOR IN TERMS OF COLLECTING AMERICAN ART?

How do we get young collectors interested when it takes enormous amounts of money to buy works of quality?  That is a really tough question.  Let’s say you are old enough and have enough money to start a collection.  Upon leaving your local museum you are inspired to collect Hudson River School paintings.  But where do you find such quality anymore?  The one or two examples of a painting by say Bierstadt, or Gifford, or Heade, that come to market are not usually the quality you just saw at the museum.  Instead they are second or third-rate works. 

Stanford Gifford
Sunset on the Hudson
Wadsworth Atheneum

If you want a first-rate work you have to wait, sometimes years and if you are lucky enough to be notified by a dealer that such a work is for sale ahead of every other collector that the dealer has already established relationships with, then you will need to quickly marshal your finances to make the leap.  Where does the next painting for your collection come from?  You like modern work? You want an oil painting by Edward Hopper? Good luck. With less than a few dozen still in private hands, and some of those already promised to a museum, you may never get a chance.  What is a young or new collector going to do?  Turn their attention to some other field. 

So I do not see the market rebounding regardless of a return to more affluent times. Dealers in American Art will become like dealers in Old Master paintings with fewer and fewer as availability of great works lessens.

Martin Johnson Heade
Sunset, A Scene in Brazil
New Britain Museum of American Art

WHICH AMERICAN ARTISTS DO YOU FEEL ARE MARKET-PROOF AND WILL SURVIVE AND BE VALUABLE DESPITE A DOWNWARD TREND?

I’m not sure if I would say that any artist is market-proof.  I have never thought of value in that manner.  That would be tantamount to saying that I think the price of IBM will always stay the same or go up.  We all know how that goes.  But there are artists whose reputation is untouchable and in general have seen a remarkable rise in price over the almost fifty years I have been in the art world. For instance, large landscapes by Albert Bierstadt would hardly fetch $100,000 fifty years ago.  Today a large luminist painting by the artist would handily bring a million dollars or in some cases multi-millions.  The same could be said of Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent. But I am talking about iconic paintings by the most famous artists America ever produced.

Winslow Homer
The Gale
Worcester Museum

What seems to be moving in a positive way are modernism, illustration and post-war paintings. But if I were to give any advice to any collector young or old, new to the game or an old hand, it would always be, provided you have fallen under the spell of the painting, to spend more than you think you can afford if the artwork is significant for the artist.  Stretch a little because those are the works that bring the greatest pleasure. 

IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG POST, ELLERY WILL SHARE HIS EXPERTISE ON THE ART OF THE APPRAISAL, A HIGHLY RESPECTED FIELD THAT, WHEN DONE WELL, RELIES ON A GREAT AMOUNT OF DILIGENCE AND RESEARCH AND AN ASTUTE EYE. ELLERY HAS ALL THREE.

THANKS FOR FOLLOWING THE LRFA BLOG!

Ellery Kurtz and the Spanierman Gallery, a heyday in American art

 

John Henry Twachtman
American, 1853-1902
Kepler Cascades, circa 1895.

SINCE ITS FOUNDING BY IRA SPANIERMAN IN THE 1960S, SPANIERMAN GALLERY’S EXHIBITIONS, RESEARCH AND CATALOGUES HAVE MADE AN IMMEASURABLE CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN ART HISTORY AND CONNOISEURSHIP. MR. SPANIERMAN’S SCHOLARSHIP AND DEEP UNDERSTANDING HAVE PLAYED AN ESSENTIAL ROLE IN BUILDING THE BODY OF KNOWLEDGE THAT NOW EXISTS ON AMERICAN ART AND ARTISTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA THROUGH THE MID-20TH CENTURY. SPANIERMAN GALLERY HAS ALSO PLACED MANY WORKS OF ICONIC VALUE IN PROMINENT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY.

Philip Leslie Hale
Collection of Spanierman Gallery at Doyle

IN 2012, THE GALLERY INVENTORY WENT ON THE BLOCK AT DOYLE AUCTION HOUSE. SPANIERMAN GALLERY’S EXTENSIVE COLLECTION OF TRADITIONAL AMERICAN ART CREATED AN EXCITING OPPORTUNITY FOR COLLECTORS AND CURATORS TO ACQUIRE WORKS CAREFULLY CHOSEN BY ONE OF THE ART WORLD’S LEADING FIGURES IN AMERICAN ART. MR. SPANIERMAN’S EYE FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY, THE UNIQUE, THE INTERESTING AND THE BEAUTIFUL WAS WELL DEMONSTRATED.

https://doyle.com/auctions/12pt02-european-american-modern-contemporary-art/spanierman-gallery-llc-collection

William Merritt Chase
At the Seaside
Metropolitan Museum of Art

IN 2014, SPANIERMAN GALLERY CLOSED. ANTIQUES AND THE ARTS INTERVIEWED IRA AT THE TIME.

NEW YORK CITY — Spanierman Gallery, a leading specialist in American art, is closing its doors in December. The gallery’s owner and namesake, Ira Spanierman, said that, at age 86 and after more than 60 years in business, he is ready for some time off.

“I didn’t want to sell my business to anyone because I don’t want to entrust my name. I want to go out the way I came in,” Spanierman told Antiques and The Arts Weekly.

Founded in 1928, Spanierman initiated catalogue raisonné projects for the artists John Henry Twachtman, Theodore Robinson and Willard Metcalf, and sponsored work on Winslow Homer. It has organized or underwritten exhibitions of Homer, Twachtman, Fitz Henry Lane and Emile A. Gruppe, among others, and has sold to nearly every major museum in the United States plus many abroad.

Raphael
Lorenzo de Medici

Ira Spanierman said that his most exciting discovery may have been a portrait of Lorenzo de Medici by Raphael that he bought for $325 in 1968. Auctioned by Christie’s in 2007, it brought $37.3 million.

Spanierman said he was instrumental in selling Alice Walton her first historical American painting, a landscape by William Merritt Chase.

https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/web-10-3-14-spanierman-closing/

Boston Harbor, Sunset
Oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Gift of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr.

ELLERY, WE MET WHEN YOU WERE A DIRECTOR AT SPANIERMAN. IRA WAS LEGENDARY IN HIS COMMITMENT AND PASSION FOR AMERICAN ART AND EDUCATING BOTH AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN COLLECTORS IN THIS FIELD.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MAJOR COLLECTIONS YOU WORKED ON?

I joined Spanierman Gallery in 1986 as their Registrar.  The American Art world was on fire with paintings coming out of the woodwork and new collectors, as well as older collectors acquiring paintings on a regular basis.  One of the collections I helped build was for a very quiet but astute gentleman who acquired wonderful Impressionist and Modernist paintings by artists such as Winslow Homer, Theodore Robinson, Willard Metcalf, Childe Hassam, Edward Hopper and many others.  Every 8 to 12 months a new work was added to his walls.  Another quiet but diligent collector was buying luminist paintings of the Hudson River School.  Both of these collections are of the highest caliber.

Victor Dubreuil
Grover Cleveland
White House Historical Collection

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MUSEUM PLACEMENTS THAT YOU HAVE MADE?

One of the more satisfying experiences for me was placing a small recently rediscovered trompe l’oeil painting by Victor Dubreuil of a postcard President Grover Cleveland tacked to a wood background.  The White House Historical Association acquired the painting for the residence. Although it was far from being what I would have called an expensive work of art, I felt like a million dollars. I was extremely proud of that sale. Placing an American painting of an American President into the most famous residence in America made me feel….well, very American.

HOW DOES SELLING TO A PRIVATE COLLECTOR DIFFER FROM SELLING TO A MUSEUM OR PUBLIC INSTITUTION?

Museums require more patience as their acquisition process is more involved and has more hurdles to jump.  Initial curator visits turn into requests for paintings to be sent to the institution for multiple board meetings.  The process often takes many months.  Still, placing works with a museum is quite rewarding.  Knowing that those paintings will now be seen by hundreds of thousands of people thanks to my efforts does make the waiting worthwhile.

Private collectors do require patience as well, but in a dissimilar fashion.  Collectors generally do not have as much knowledge as museum curators although there are always exceptions.  While there are many private collectors who are knowledgeable about the artist, there are other factors that still require explanation such as condition, or historical significance.  Collectors react to paintings more intuitively while museums are far more focused on historical significance and how a work “fits” into the collection academically.

Willard Metcalf
Summer Morning, Giverny

CAN YOU TRACK THE INTEREST IN AMERICAN ART FROM WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED TO WORK IN THE FIELD TO THE PRESENT TIME?

Looking back to 1970, scholarship in American Art has exploded.  In 1970, while you could have a rather large library dedicated to American Art, the amount of publications since then has been incredible.  Museums and galleries both published monographs, catalogue raisonnés, coffee table books, and countless exhibition catalogues on private collections, individual artists, movements or themes.  The level of scholarship increased with each year. Dozens of galleries devoted their bin space strictly to American Art.  New museums opened that were dedicated to American Art and older museums added works to their collections annually. It became competitive. Auction prices rose dramatically with the exception of years of economic distress.

Frederic Childe Hassam
The Afternoon in the Rain

HOW DO YOU ACCOUNT FOR THE PEAKS AND VALLEYS OF THE AMERICAN ART MARKET?

It was those years when markets slowed down as prices dropped but the troughs were always accentuated by the peaks and prices moving up as economic prosperity returned after each recession.

The current downward trend has many reasons.  The economic recession of 2008 took the wind out of the sails after many good years of strong headwinds.  It has not quite returned.  Why? Older buyers have filled their walls. Important collectors have donated their collections to museums or promised them upon their demise.  Not enough top end material is being discovered anymore. 

IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG POST, ELLERY WILL ANALYZE THE PROFILE OF THE CURRENT COLLECTORS AND HOW THEIR ATTITUDE AFFECTS THE CURRENT MARKET FOR 19th AND 20th CENTURY AMERICAN ART.

WE HAVE WITH US A GREAT EXPERT IN THIS FIELD WHO HAS PLACED MANY MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN ART IN BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. ELLERY IS AN ASTUTE OBSERVER OF THE EBB AND FLOW OF ITS MARKET. ELLERY AND THE LRFA BLOG WELCOME YOUR QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS ON THE SUBJECT.

FIRE AWAY!

 

The art of relationships: art fairs, appraisal services, museum curators at Debra Force Fine Art

Debra Force
Art League Presents
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts

DEVELOPING A DIALOGUE WITH MUSEUM CURATORS AND MUSEUM BOARDS AND PLACING WORKS IN INSTITUTIONAL VENUES IS ONE OF THE GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF ONLY A HANDFUL OF GALLERIES.  IT REPRESENTS AN INVESTMENT OF TIME AND SCHOLARSHIP AS WELL AS ONE OF NURTURING RELATIONSHIPS. SEVERAL CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES HAVE DIRECTORS WHO FOCUS SOLELY ON CULTIVATING MUSEUM RELATIONSHIPS FOR THEIR ARTISTS, TRAVELING ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO NEGOTIATE EXHIBITIONS AND MEETING WITH BOARDS OF MUSEUMS AND CURATORS TO PRESENT WORKS BY ARTISTS THEY REPRESENT. IT IS AN ART FORM IN AND OF ITSELF.

AS THE CHICAGO APPRAISERS ASSOCIATION NOTES:

The trick to selling to museums whether it be a large institution like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or your local historical society is scholarly research, provenance and a lot of patience. Nothing moves fast with museums. They do not have to necessarily operate on at a yearly profit, so they move at their own maddening slow pace.

IT IS A MARK OF THE QUALITY OF THE WORK AND THE EXPERTISE OF THE DEALER THAT DEBRA FORCE HAS SUCH GREAT SUCCESS IN PLACING ART WORKS IN VERY PRESTIGIOUS MUSEUMS.

TODAY, THE LRFA BLOG CONTINUES ITS DIALOG WITH DEBRA TO LEARN ABOUT THIS ASPECT OF THE ART BUSINESS.

http://www.debraforce.com

DEBRA, THE GALLERY HAS AN EXTREMELY ACTIVE AND IMPRESSIVE TRACK RECORD OF STRONG RELATIONSHIPS WITH NUMEROUS MUSEUMS. HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT?

I started out more in the museum field and have an academic background, so have always felt a special affinity for institutions.  Throughout my career, I have made a point of visiting the curator or director of the art museum wherever I am traveling and have welcomed them to the gallery.  At times, we’ve organized small events for museum collecting groups and patrons, including special Saturday visits to discuss American art, using our inventory as visuals.  I have also spoken at various institutions and to their collecting groups, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the High Museum, etc. 

I have always attempted to match works of art with the right institution and find it rewarding to do so.  Museums to which we have sold works in recent times include:  Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vero Beach Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Montclair Art Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among many others.

Norman Bluhm
X, 1964
Oil on canvas

WHAT WOULD YOU DEFINE AS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SALE TO A COLLECTOR AND A SALE TO A MUSEUM?

Both are rewarding, especially if helping a client build a collection; there is a sense of pride in coming up with a theme or plan and finding works to illustrate the goal.  From the museum standpoint, it is so exciting to place a work in an institution where it will be studied and admired for posterity.  It is less interesting to work with clients who are mostly buying art for decorative purposes, but it can be challenging just the same.

Martin Johnson Heade
Cluster of Roses In a Glass
Circa 1887-1895

THE GALLERY IS A REGULAR EXHIBITOR AND PARTICIPANT IN SOME VERY PRESTIGIOUS ART FAIRS. WHICH ONES DO YOU FIND THE MOST PRODUCTIVE AND WHY, IN TERMS OF ATTENDANCE, SALES AND INTRODUCING NEW COLLECTORS TO THE GALLERY? 

We do a variety of art fairs to reach different audiences.  The best one for traditional American art is the one called The American Art Fair (TAAF) which takes place every Nov. at the same time as the major American Paintings auctions.  We have sold major works there, including ones by Martin Johnson Heade, Thomas LeClear, Thomas Hart Benton, and Oscar Bluemner.  It is the only fair that extols traditional American art; no works by living artists are allowed.

Milton Avery
Pink Island, White Waves, 1959
Oil on canvasboard

Of late, because of the emphasis on art from the second half of the 20^th Century and 21^st Century, we have exhibited at the Seattle Art Fair in August and Art Miami in December.  In both cases, we have focused upon Post-War era works as well as Modernism.  These fairs give us a chance to meet new clients and to exhibit works that we do not feature in the gallery on a regular basis.  We might also show works by living artists such as Wolf Kahn, Wayne Thiebaud, or Jamie Wyeth.

John Marin
Hudson River Galley, 1911
watercolor on paper

The Art Fair, sponsored by the ADAA in New York in March, is a favorite of ours.  It also allows us to promote our 20^th-century material, generally with a thematic approach such as a tribute to the 100^th anniversary of the Armory Show of 1913, social commentary, or urban/rural landscape.  We have consistently sold well at this fair, selling works by Marsden Hartley, Walt Kuhn, Charles Sheeler, Max Weber, Charles Burchfield, John Marin, and Alice Neel, among others.

We have also tried fairs in Palm Beach and Chicago as well as others in New York, always experimenting with new venues to determine where we best fit.

THE GALLERY ALSO PROVIDES LICENSED APPRAISAL SERVICES. WHAT DOES THAT ENTAIL AND WHAT DO YOU PROVIDE?

I have been doing appraisals for over 30 years, beginning when I was at Christie’s.  We presently provide formal insurance valuations for both private collectors and museums and assist the latter with insurance figures for exhibition loans.  Over the years, we have appraised entire museum collections.  We do not presently do gift tax or estate appraisals, but we do offer consultation and recommendations for clients in need of either.

O. Louis Guglielmi
Elements of the Street, 1947
Oil on canvas

THE GALLERY TAKES WORKS ON CONSIGNMENT ON OCCASION. WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA WHEN CONSIDERING A WORK OF ART FOR RESALE?

We try to find the best quality works that we can from any period of American art, beginning in the 18^th Century up to about 1980. 

For example, we have portraits by Benjamin West and Thomas Sully, landscapes by Jasper Cropsey and Thomas Moran, still lifes by Heade and William Harnett, genre scenes by Eastman Johnson and Winslow Homer, Ashcan works by Robert Henri, William Glackens, and Everett Shinn, Modernist pieces by Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, and Arthur Dove, Regionalist scenes by Thomas Hart Benton, and Surrealist and Magic Realist pieces by George Tooker and O. Louis Guglielmi, among others. 

Winslow Homer
Green Apples, 1866
Oil on canvas

We attempt to find the best of any given artist and work with pieces in a variety of price ranges to accommodate clients with varying pocketbooks.  Generally, most of our inventory is on consignment; it is very difficult to buy works at auction for resale, given public access to price records on the internet.

IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG POST, DEBRA WILL CONTINUE TO OUTLINE THE EXTENSIVE SCOPE OF SERVICES THAT THE GALLERY PROVIDES.

WE LOOK FORWARD TO HAVING A BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF THE HIGH STANDARDS THAT THE GALLERY SETS IN PROVIDING EXPERTISE IN EVERY ASPECT OF THE BUYING, EXHIBITING AND SELLING OF AMERICA ART.

UNTIL THEN, THANK YOU ALL!

 

 

NB The works illustrated in this blog are from the gallery inventory