Under. he hammer ARTS
PAUL GRINKE
One could legitimately question the myth of London as the living art centre of the world, but as far as selling the stuff goes the auction houses have only to show you their annual figures to prove their point. It's not just more people anxious to acquire a decreasing num- ber of good things but a quiet revofution implicit in the whole idea of auctioneering.
Auctioneers have traditionally been middle- men assisting the circulation of marketable objects and at the same time fulfilling a vital role in pegging prices. Without the auction rooms the supply would dwindle and there would be a public lost of faith in the prices of objects which for the most part have little or no intrinsic value. Where the London rooms score over their Paris rivals is in the omis- sion of an additional charge paid by the pur- chaser and the advantages are obvious over the German system where auction houses purchase material and auction it for their own profit.
It is a highly competitive business and the necessity of keeping up an enormous turnover in the face of increasing costs without pushing up the commission to a point where private vendors are frightened off leaves the door open for a number of more or less sharp practices. Anyone who has been to a mock auction, those hastily contrived affairs with one man keeping an eye open for the law and a handful of stooges in the audience to keep the ball rolling, knows what a farce an auction can become. The major auction houses operate on a different level, but they do have a number of effective and barely perceptible tricks up their sleeve. Lengthy catalogue notes and illustrations give little things a big boost, the speed of selling is at the auctioneer's discretion and can become a cross-country run without actually picking bids out of thin air and, most significant of all, 'Bought-in lots.' These are often partly the fault of investors wanting to realise on expensive paintings a year or two after buying, and insisting on unrealistic prices; but for the smaller vendor who has an exaggerated idea of the value of his goods the process can be dis- illusioning and expensive. No one wants to air his treasures in the market-place and then carry them, rather soiled, back home.
Over the last ten years the range of com- modities sold by auction has increased enor- mously. Modern picture sales are now the staple of any successful auction house, but such curi- osities as old clothes, scale model engines, motor-cars and even wine, long the province of specialist auctioneers, have been swept into the net. Where the role of the auctioneer begins to get confused with that of the enter- prising specialist dealer and threatens to usurp his authority with the public is in the thematic sales which have been such a feature of the last year. Sotheby's, always alert to a news- worthy idea and remarkably in touch with the latest shifts in taste, put on an art nouveau sale embracing material which would normally have appeared in many different sated if at all. As a pilot scheme it was evidently, success- ful, in spite of hoots of derision from seVeral quarters at the quality of the material on view, .and with great skill they have follovied the
almost uncharted 'twenties revival with a Russian Ballet sale.
In a sale of this nature the material cannot be accumulated over the period of one season but has to be actively searched for. This is to my mind a disturbing trend. Onde the auction houses go out actively touting for custom they must renounce their uncommitted role and the privilege of setting themselves up as unbiased arbiters of price. At present the public is unaware of the nature of a sale until it is already catalogued and the date announced, but I can foresee a time when thematic sales will be suggested long in advance and offers of suitable material invited. With this machinery in action the auction houses could create a demand for whole areas of unconsidered trifles and, given the emotional nature of auctions as public spectacles, it would undoubtedly show a handsome profit.
The boom in sales still affects only a small number of people. Anyone with a sharp eye must have noticed that the majority of lots in any sale are knocked down to dealers and of those a large proportion are bought on com- mission. In this case it is in the interest of both auctioneer and dealer to see that the highest price is reached. Without a commission, the ring, that particular bogey of the Sunday papers, is no doubt lurking in the shadows ready to spring. Such arrangements do happen but only in the most rural sales where the 'knock-out' is traditionally consummated on the nearest tombstone or the back room of the local pub. Bidding itself is a matter of personal preference and can be done with the discreet nod afforded to a head waiter or the frenetic semaphore of a tictac man. In America the whole business is conducted like a baseball game, with porters catching bids and pitching them over the heads of the crowd to the auctioneer.
To the traditional caveat emptor, now mar- ginally covered by the new law tightening up descriptions, one might fairly add caveat ven- dor. The drawbacks of the auction room for the private vendor are the uncertainty of the result and the time lag before the object appears in a sale, often as much as a whole season. Everyone has his favourite story about cata- loguers' boobs, but even fully catalogued im- portant works have been known to go at a knock-down price if one of the two interested parties has had too long a coffee break or is covering another sale in the same building.
The rivalry between the two major London auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, is too commonplace to need much elaboration. A
recent jibe that Sotheby's are dealers trying to be gentleMen acid Christie's gentlemen try- ing to be dealers may conceal a germ of truth. But behind their. Bertie Wooster image and a front desk whicli'could double for the Drones' Club Christie's manage to attract collections of the calibre of Northwick Park and Corn- bury Park. Sotheby's strength lies in tremen- dous expertise with a body of professional opinion, often extracted by some wizardry from the quiet backwaters of museum-land, and an unrivalled publicity machine. The growth in turnover of the two' firms over the last five years has been virtually identical, scale choice remains an entirely personal one.
The history of taste has been brilliantly writ- ten by Gerald Reitlinger in terms of auction prices. But so far sales have always reflected the taste of the public and the dealers who cater for it. Now it looks as if the auction houses are going further than their .prerogative of rejection and selection, so as actively to mould and confirm public taste. Whether one finds this encouraging or disturbing, it is a good measure of the present authority of the rooms.
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