Perls of Wisdom: Nuggets from Late NYC Dealer Klaus Perls, 96

Soutine catalogue raisonnée, co-authored by Klaus Perls

Klaus Perls, who died last week at the age of 96, was that rare art dealer whose knowledge of art and the art market was both scholarly and worldly. What's more, as I often had occasion to discover during my early days as an art-market reporter, he was generous, friendly and articulate in sharing all he knew.

A former president of the Art Dealers Association of America, Perls primarily dealt in modern (pre-contemporary) art. He was a specialist in Modigliani and Soutine but was also contemporary artist Alexander Calder's exclusive U.S. dealer from 1955 until the artist's death in 1976. The sidewalk in front of Perls' Madison Avenue gallery was famously adorned by a Calder-designed black and white terrazzo pattern, installed at the dealer's behest in 1970 and restored in 2002.

He also became a footnote in art-law history, as a protagonist in the much cited 1969 case, Menzel v. List---an early Nazi-loot lawsuit involving a Chagall that Perls had bought from a Paris dealer and sold in 1955 to collector Albert List. The court awarded the painting to the World War II-era owner, Erna Menzel. Perls had to pay List the $22,500 appreciated value of the painting, which List had purchased from him for only $4,000. The judges felt that a person in Perls' position should have been able to determine whether he was getting good title or should at least have warned his clients about any uncertainty.

Remembering with gratitude all the things that Perls explained to me when I was trying to understand the intricacies of the art market, I examined the index of my 1982 book, "The Complete Guide to Collecting Art," and saw I had cited him 12 times.

Here, from the book, are some pearls harvested from Perls:

The primary thing that collectors are asking about today is authenticity. They are running scared about forgeries and misattributions. They are terribly suspicious, and I encourage them to be suspicious.

Some books are published to reproduce forged things.

If you find an unsigned Soutine, you can be almost sure it's real [because most Soutines have mysteriously acquired forged signatures].

Enjoying art is a genetically programmed activity in human beings. Some people are born with a certain feeling for quality.

If I get the feeling that people really want to learn, I am perfectly happy to tell them everything I know. If they seem superficial, I clam up.

He might not have told "everything," but I suspect he was at least cordial and helpful to anyone who walked into 1014 Madison seeking knowledge.