The Art Dealers’ Bad Rap

In 1974, the International Confederation of Art Dealers held an Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This was an unprecedented event in this country since the art was on the secondary market and not contemporary. It is an amazing story, if I do say so myself, which you can read here, 

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2019/02/the-grand-gallery-revisited.html

I bring this up because I find it so surprising that my former profession, which I was very proud of, has had such a poor reputation. After all, how does art get into a museum? Either a curator purchases it from the market, or a collector donates it from their collection. That donor acquired it somewhere, most likely from a dealer, inheritance, or a purchase directly from the artist, being the exception.

Thinking about this issue, I guess it comes to the root of all evil – Money! As you probably have heard, “Money Makes the World Go Around” ... 

Some think the market is fixed because dealers don’t post prices. They assume that auctions are out in the open, but there, you do not know about hidden reserves, usually set by the owner, or at what figure a guarantee has been made by the auction house, usually backed by a would-be buyer. Not to mention fees and taxes. It is true that an art dealer can, in some sense, choose his client. When I was in business, I might have kept something for a curator or important collector if they had told me that I should find them a specific kind of artwork. Still, that work was acquired to sell, and unless there was a specific request to reserve something for a fixed amount of time, I wanted it paid for as quickly as possible so that I had the funds to buy more. This was true whether I owned the work or if I had it on consignment. Here is an image of the well-known art dealer Leo Castelli showing a picture to the artist Salvador Dali.

In the secondary art market, a trusted dealer may be sought for his discretion. Works change hands among collectors for various personal reasons, ranging from divorce, estates, or new ventures, which the collector may wish to keep private. One does not want to ask your friend or a member of your extended family to buy something directly from you. I remember when members of the Rothschild family found it unseemly to buy from each other. So, one Baron X might want Rosenberg & Stiebel to negotiate, or not, with Baron Y, whom Baron X knew wanted the work. In those cases, we did get an agreed-upon commission. All parties knew what the deal was.

In the contemporary art world, there are stereotypes: the starving artist, the scholarly museum curator, and the moneyed art dealer. No thought is given to the fact that the unknown artist would be given short shrift if he walked into the museum and tried to sell his work directly. If the curator had the time and inclination to even see the work and like it enough to show it to his Director, and if he could win his support, they would need to convince the Trustees that this was a worthy acquisition, even as a gift. It just does not happen.

The gallery has to “discover” the artist and try to convince private clients to buy. It may sound snobbish, but it is human nature not to want the risk of being “wrong” (there is no right or wrong when it comes to art), but there is a need to “look good” to fellow collectors.

I will leave you with this question: Is the art dealer or gallery a necessary evil, or are the dealers educators and explorers finding treasures and even discovering hidden treasures, i.e., works of art and artists, in the interests of collectors and museums?