Go Big and Go Private

Georgina Adam surveys the art market for 2012 finding uncertainty and doubts. She cites the eroding sales in Impressionism and the fall off in buying in the “recent sales of Old Masters, Russian art, Middle Eastern art, 19th-century painting and European sculpture” where markets “have all seen high buy-in rates, while antiques, furniture in particular, are in the doldrums.”

Adam checks in with Clare McAndrew who remains upbeat: “The art market is saved by two things: Europe, with its economic woes, is becoming less important; and the high end is so strong” even while she admits that the masterpiece market is starving out players in the middle market. Or, as Adam quotes McAndrew “Dealers in smaller markets are very panicky […] But the high end is getting further away from the rest,”

Adam also speaks to Eykyn MacLean’s Nick MacLean who also remains upbeat because of the private sales he sees.

“There were surprisingly few guarantees in the November sales,” says Nick Maclean of the dealership Eykyn Maclean. “This shows that vendors were confident they would sell.” He says that in the impressionist and modern art field the auction results do not reveal the enormous amount of business transacted out of the public eye, through private dealers or through the auction houses’ private treaty departments. He is confident that there is enough supply in this field as well.

It is worth speculating that these two trends—the retreat to private sales and the growth of the high end of the market—are connected.

A Market Divided (The Art Newspaper)