5. Look Now – Buy Later

"buy this painting, can you guarantee that in five years it will double in value?"
Woman to Art Dealer

How to See and Buy at Art Galleries and Auctions

Like taking your first ride in an airplane, the virgin visit to an art gallery might give you a few tremors. For art dealers and art galleries have had a vivid and varied press. Opinions of them range from the thought that all art emporia are "rogues' galleries" indeed, to the expression by F. J. Mather, Jr., in his Concerning Beauty, that without the art dealer there could be no art today. Because, he explains, it was the dealer who sustained and encouraged the artist from the 18th century on, when the patronage of church and royalty failed him.

As for myself, I try to place art dealers somewhere between the two extreme positions. I feel that they have neither halos nor horns. Examine the owner of a typical art gallery and you will find that, according to his corporeal specifications, you are looking at a human being. He thus has the virtues and failings common to you and me. That there may be charlatan­ism and chicanery present in the species I will not deny, for you will find a hint of it wherever you give careful scrutiny to many people.

I have spent so many pleasant hours visiting galleries, look­ing at their exhibits, chatting with the owners (and learning from them as well) that I have the highest regard for the vast majority of these entrepreneurs of the art world.

I have had my unpleasant experiences, too, of course. I could tell you about a particular gallery owner who descends upon an observer literally licking his chops. If you stand before a drawing or painting for more than three minutes, an unctuous voice informs you that, "It's a beautiful thing. Why don't you buy it? You don't have to pay for it now. You can take it on credit." As you move around the gallery from pic­ture to picture, the monody goes on.

Contrast that with the charming owner of the Krasner Gal­lery on New York's Madison Avenue. I visited there once to pick up a painting I had purchased through another source. Mr. Krasner was not involved in the transaction in any way. When I asked for my picture, he handed it to me and said only, "If you don't have a favorite framer, we do framing; and we would like to help you." I explained that I had some­body who did this work for me, and nothing more was said.

I remember a pleasant visit to the Knoedler Gallery when I was looking for a very small and modestly priced bronze by Henry Moore. I gave my budget limitations and was still treated as if I were the Shah of Iran.

Similar experiences have pleased me in galleries all over the world. It is only occasionally that you have an unsavory episode, or find a dealer so covetous that you shudder at his anxiety to make a sale. As a result you can have many charm­ing hours just wandering through galleries and looking. Usu­ally, there is a gentleman or woman working or reading at a desk in an inner office who waits quietly for you to make the opening gambit.

I have spent many a worthwhile hour chatting with, and learning from, directors, owners, or managers of art galleries. If drawings take your fancy, drop in to see Mr. Slatkin on East 92nd Street in New York. He can tell you much about the medium, for he is a recognized authority on drawings. If the owner is not in, take a look at the book on the table—it was written by Mr. Slatkin and has a lot to say.

A visit to Mr. Lucien Goldschmidt's relaxed, yet almost austere, premises gave me the fascinating story about a col­lector who bought a drawing by Fernand Leger which had a second drawing on the reverse side.

Several months after the purchase, the owner took the drawing to Leger and asked him to sign the back. Leger agreed willingly. The collector's next step was a visit to the British Museum with a request that the drawing be split in two. The Museum reluctantly met the request. And the astute collector now has two Legers in place of one!

I do not want to indicate that you must not treat a transac­tion with an art dealer as a matter of dollars and cents. In far too many galleries the ambience of an Oriental bazaar does prevail. Such dealers are given to pricing pictures and sculp­ture well above the figure they hope to get when the ex­pected round of bargaining is ended. If you are like me, your stomach quivers a little at the prospect of haggling about price. Yet it is hard to see, in view of the practice having become so well established, how we can avoid bringing our best instincts into the situation.

Perhaps the best thing one can do is to look at a picture, and then go out to discover all one can about the artist and the other work he has produced. If you really like the painter's work, look at similar examples of it in other galleries and check on the prices. Then decide in your own mind a figure you feel is within your means, yet which would not deprive the dealer of a legitimate return. Now is the time to ask him his price. Perhaps it will be below what you had expected to pay. It is surprising how many times you will overestimate what the dealer is going to ask. If such be the case, wonderful. But if there is a great difference between the demand and what you can offer, just tell the dealer that you do not want to become involved in bids and negotiations but that you do have a price limit. If he meets it, good. If he cannot meet your price, then forget the picture—at least for the time being.

I know many collectors whose financial syndrome dominates their desire for the beautiful. They develop certain techniques which they hope will catch gallery owners at the proper weak moment. I will pass these on to you, but I advise you not to try them without subtlety, since I hope there will be many readers of this book among dealers, as well as future col­lectors, and so my words should put my friends among gal­lery owners en garde.

What these more acquisitive fellows do is to wait until the last hours of a show, when interested visitors are very few and far between, and when likely purchasers seem a dim prospect. Very often, at this moment, the dealer is extremely anxious to sell the work on his walls and is consequently will­ing to make some concession in price.

Another sometimes successful venture is to look for a lagniappe when you make a really substantial investment in any particular gallery. For the sake of good will and good business, many dealers will be willing to take a slight loss on some minor drawing or water color which you might fancy. A collector I know bought a Venard oil for $1,100; and, when he made the suggestion to his dealer that he would like to have a charming drawing by Pascin for $50.00 under the quoted price of $275, the deal was made. But, for the most part, I cannot in good conscience recommend such actions. I think you will find, for the most part, that the dealer is asking only a respectable profit on the work he offers you. As in all life's circumstances, you will find highly disturbing exceptions; and they are often exceptions which sour collectors who might otherwise be led to acquire other selections, selec­tions they forego because of suspicions about the markup methods of the art merchants.

One brilliant financier and collector with whom I have talked feels there is no consistency about the markup in an art gallery in relation to the dealer's overhead costs and the other usual considerations that retailers use in deciding on a final price. It is my opinion that the gallery owner's judgment and knowledge, his willingness to risk his capital in goods which have no actual fixed value and can fluctuate wildly, preclude application of the usual laws of retailing. Many a gallery owner sustains a loss because he believes in an artist's future. And while he may pay only $50 for a canvas he eventu­ally sells for $2,000, one never knows how much help—material and spiritual—he has given to the artist involved ... or how many such $50 investments never increase—are never sold.

It is inevitable that you will have heard many stories about the fakes and forgeries offered by art dealers. While in some few cases such fraud may be deliberate, many times the gal­lery owner himself is deceived. It would, therefore, be wise, when a substantial sum of money is involved, and the painting is allegedly by someone worth forging, to have it authenticated by a highly qualified person. The museum authorities in your home town or city will usually be happy to accommodate you in this regard. If no museum is nearby, try the art department of the closest college. Don't think that you are presuming by requesting such help. Museum officials are only too glad to encourage collectors on their home grounds, even if their motives are purely selfish, because they look forward to one day having your collection on their exhibition walls. Inci­dentally, there are many tax benefits which accrue to donors of art collections. Should you assemble one of any considerable value, it will be well for you to discuss this aspect of collect­ing with museum authorities and, of course, your own lawyer. As for the matter of fakes and forgeries, it is a highly com­plicated area, one we could scarcely explore here. There is quite a large literature extant on this subject which provides exciting and informative reading.

Since such books and tales make no particular contribution to cultivating an "A.Q." or developing anything in you but caution, I am not setting them down on your list of required reading. But if you like fun, you will be amused by the com­ment of Picasso when a visitor to his studio mentioned the appalling number of fakes he had seen on his trip to Paris. "Yes," said the painter, "many fakes. In fact, I often paint fakes myself!" Another charming and oft-repeated bon mot on this widely discussed subject is the line that "Corot painted a thousand pictures and three thousand of them are right here in Americal"

When you go to an art exhibit in a gallery you will find it sound practice not to rush to a catalogue and start checking off prices in relation to your own pocketbook. Walk around the gallery slowly. Don't concentrate on any of the exhibits too strongly. Be patient until a work catches your eye and awakens more than a moderate emotional response in you. When this happens, it is time to pay that particular picture or sculpture a lot of your time and attention. Let your own "A.Q." decide whether this is an object you really like. Hark back to all the points of response I discussed with you in previous chapters. Then, and only then, are you ready to set upon the more crass steps which lead up to having your choice wrapped and sent home.

While I have indicated that a certain degree of caution is necessary in an art gallery, I don't think I need point out the really serious mistakes it is easy to make at an art auction. Yet there is no question that collectors make some of their most wonderful coups at auction houses when famous or even lesser-known collections are offered to the highest bidder. The first thing you must remember is to see the specimens well in advance of the actual auction day. Pick out those which appeal to you aesthetically, and which you would like to own for their beauty and the pleasure they can afford.

Then, just as I recommended that you do with your selec­tion in a gallery, set a price in your own mind. You must re­member that you will often be attending auctions with men and women of great wealth, and it will be impossible for you to outbid them if they really want a picture. Unless you have a firm limit established in your own mind, you may be swept off your feet by the excitement of the auction atmosphere and be in over your head before you realize it.

An astute buyer of my immediate acquaintance has some very sound ideas about purchasing at auctions. He has learned that the really important offerings usually begin about half­way through the auction and run until about the last 10 or 12 pieces offered for sale. Thus he considers only the first dozen or so as well as the last 8 or 10 as coming within his grasp.

He knows, too, that during the bidding for the first group of pictures people are still settling down for the sale, chatting with friends, not yet intensely interested in the proceedings.

The same thing happens in reverse when the auctioneer gets to the last 10 or 12. People have become restless and are start­ing to leave. The truly great adventures of the evening are over and the prices have occasioned such excitement that at­tention has wandered from the last few offerings. It is at this point that the buyer has the best chance of making a really outstanding purchase. So he secures his catalogue of the auc­tion well in advance, checks for the things that he thinks likely to come to him, and visits the auction house for a careful inspection of his desired acquisitions; when the sale begins he knows what he wants and what he wants to pay for it.

He also has another important principle. He never fails to attend an auction when the weather is abnormally dismal. He has found that during heavy rains, snowstorms, and unendur-ably warm nights, the audience is thin and bidding apathetic.

Another idea he uses to advantage is to look for auctions when there are no really great drawing cards. At such rela­tively dull auctions, he is less likely to encounter heavy com­petition for the articles on which he has his wary eye. Yet he often discovers work of many minor artists which pleases his "A.Q."

Something which you must remember, if you decide to fre­quent the auctions, is that here you are even more open to the possibility of coming into ownership of a forgery. If a picture is attributed to an obviously great painter, why isn't it in some important collection? It is unfortunate that at American auctions you are not given any guarantee by the auction house as to authenticity, whereas the European operators do provide the requisite verification for the work's genuineness. But you will always have the opportunity, if you examine the work well in advance, to see the custom stamps and other marks of "pedigree" on the back of the picture, including who has owned it and where it has been exhibited.

Another thing to be very careful about is susceptibility to such obvious faking as age marks, which would be unlikely to occur in a valuable picture, since it would ordinarily have been afforded complete protection. While I know that I have hedged on the advisability of buying at auctions, with many reservations and warnings, it is certainly worth your while to investigate this source. You may have heard that it is im­possible to bid against dealers; but keep in mind that, after a dealer has purchased a painting at auction, he must add 30 to 40% in order to resell it, and he thus cannot bid as high as you—to take away the truly beautiful that you want to own and enjoy.

The third place to buy pictures is at large quasi-public exhibitions, such as are held by museums, colleges, art schools, and art associations. Check your library's copy of The Ameri­can Art Directory for a listing of such organizations.

But remember that you don't even have to be thinking about buying to enjoy your visits to museums, or galleries. You will find fellow collectors by the score. They will be ready and probably willing to discuss the fine points of the exhibit. You can disengage the owner or manager from his round of duties to glean valuable information about an artist, a school, a movement. Perhaps one day our art galleries will try the pleas­ant practice of their Roman colleagues, who sponsor what is equivalent to an open house each day after working hours. Customers, curious visitors, interested friends, and the artists whose work is shown in the gallery meet for an hour or two of spirited conversation on the exhibits and on life in the glowing world of art. If they do introduce the custom, I'll meet you there.

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