Daniel Grant has a funny little story on Huffington Post that suggests some turn of events has primary market dealers taking responsibility for their artists’ secondary markets.Within the story, Grant talks to the dealer behind the Michael Goldberg market. It just so happens that there was this Goldberg sale at Sotheby’s yesterday when Still Life with Onion Rolls (120-180k) sold for $317k, nicely above the estimate but slotting in behind this sale:
Michael Rosenfeld, a Manhattan gallery owner, noted that he regularly buys works by artists in his gallery — both living artists and those whose estates he represents — at auction, sometimes setting auction records for those artists. One recent example was a 1957-58 painting “Park Avenue Façade” by Michael Goldberg at Christie’s New York last May, paying $461,000, well above the $100,000-150,000 estimate set by the auction house and double the previous auction record of $230,500. “The $100,000 low estimate was ridiculously low, and I know I will eventually sell it for $1 million.”
These Days, Artists Assume Their Primary Dealers Will Work for Them on the Secondary Market, Too (Daniel Grant)