Sale-rooms
Bulk buying
Peter Watson
Christie's and Sotheby's are in some ways the Laurel and Hardy of the art world. Theirs is a starring role but an uneasy relationship. Constantly bickering, the fat one bashes the thin one over the head with a wet bowler, the thin one responds by snipping the fat one's braces with the scissors. The rest of us sit back and shake with laughter. But there's money in this commedia dell'arte: Stan and 011ie, Christie's and Sotheby's, out-earn most of us.
The virtual duopoly which the two houses enjoy concentrates the mind on their rivalry. Who has the best pictures? Who sets the most records? Which is the better place to sell your violin or your Volnay? Your grandmother or your soul? This month the rivalry is at its most intense. May in New York always sees the big sales of contemporary art and Impress- ionist and modern paintings. This is the time when the big guns, even by Iraqi standards, are wheeled out.
This May is no exception. Indeed, it promises to be the most exciting and the most nerve-wracking month we have yet seen, for three reasons. First the pictures are genuinely marvellous. Barely a season goes by now without this Picasso or that Pollock, this Degas or that De Kooning
'Let me through! I'm a doctor!'
attracting bids as Garbo attracted myths. Even by these standards, however, this month's pictures are notable.
Christie's has Van Gogh's 'Portrait of Dr Gachet', which was painted almost 100 years ago to the day, on or about 4 June 1890. Gachet, a homeopathic doctor, was Van Gogh's own physician towards the end, and the friend and patron of Cezanne, Pissarro and Sisley. Unlike some Van Goghs, the sheen on this one is marvellous; if 'Irises' was worth $53.9 million, then this is definitely worth the $40-50 million esti- mate which Christie's have put on it.
Sotheby's have Renoir's 'Au Moulin de la Galette', one of his most well-known images (since another version exists in the Muse e d'Orsay in Paris). Bad Renoirs, often of girls who look as though they have been punched in the mouth, are not uncommon in the sale-rooms but, as any- one knows who has been to the top floor of the said Musee d'Orsay, the difference between a good Renoir and a bad one is as marked as the difference between Laurel and Hardy and Nelson and Hardy. Sotheby's Renoir carries the same estimate as 'Dr Gachet' but there are some folk in the New York art trade who talk, in hushed tones, of it reaching $75 million.
These two pictures apart, Christie's also have Manet's 'Le Banc (le Jardin de Versailles)' (estimate: $20-25 million) and Matisse's 'Femme au Bijou Bleu (Helene Galitzine)' ($4-6 million), and Sotheby's have another Renoir, `Jeune Fille au Chat' ($15-20 million), Monet's 'Le Grand Can- al' ($9-12 million) and De Kooning's `Woman as Landscape' (also $9-12 mil- lion). Women are expensive in Manhattan.
A second reason why May fever will be affecting the nerves arises from the sales in London last month. It did not go unnoticed that 'buying-in' rates rose to very uncom- fortable levels: 50, 60 or 70 per cent is one thing when it refers to the level of alcohol in a cognac or a calvados, but quite another when it refers to the proportion unsold at auction. The response of the sale-room Stanleys was to say that the good stuff was selling okay and that the rest was over- priced by ambitious (i.e. greedy) vendors. Hmm . . . the good art this month rates with the best so, if the April weather was just a shower, and not a sign of global cooling, the London pattern ought not to be repeated in New York. But there will be no shortage of nerves on the big nights.
The final reason why May could turn out to be especially interesting is quite diffe- rent from the other two: a one-off, a wild card, a joker, albeit a serious one. It comes in the form of George Goldner, curator of paintings and drawings at the Getty Museum in Malibu. The two main pictures in this month's sales — the Van Gogh and the Renoir — are so evenly matched that it is tempting to wonder which of the very few players at this level will go for which pictures. Does Niarchos have a Matisse? Does Annenberg have a De Kooning? Which of the Japanese will buy 'La Galet- te'? Against all the above, the following possibility may seem fanciful but that doesn't mean it can't happen in the modern art world. It is that Goldner, on the Getty's behalf, should buy no fewer than four of the big pictures.
Goldner has the money. If these pictures (the Van Gogh, the Renoir, the Manet and the Matisse) sell within their estimates, he will be spending in the $100-130 million bracket. More, it is someone else's money, not Goldner's own, and that, as Mr Michael Thomas reminds us in several books, is the best kind of money there is.
But, most important of all, this May represents a real chance for the Getty to acquire museum-quality pictures and no one knows when that set of circumstances is likely to recur. Despite the fuss that has been made over some of the museum's acquisitions, it has, over the last few years, bought some truly wonderful masterpieces — Mantegna's 'Adoration of the Magi', Pontormo's 'Portrait of Cosimo de' Medi- ci', Manet's 'La Rue Mosnier', Renoir's `La Promenade' and, most recently, Van Gogh's 'Irises'. By the end of this month, the Museum could have two great Manets, two great Renoirs, two great Van Goghs. More than ever would it be a place to visit.
Nor is this rate of acquisition all that unusual, at least in historical terms. Clay Frick bought a Turner, a Vermeer and a Monet all in 1901, an El Greco, a van Dyck and a Titian in 1905. The Getty has some way to go before it rivals the Frick collec- tion but May offers George Goldner a rare chance to close the gap. And, in the process, cover himself with laurel.
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