Art galleries come and go all the time in New York, but when was the last time you recall one opening to specialize in Impressionist and 19th century paintings?
Can’t remember one? Neither can I. A quick look at the Art Dealers Association of America website, which lists dealers by specialty, shows many members that handle “19th Century European” but most of them really specialize in something else, be it Old Masters or Modern. And all of them, seems to me, have been around a long time.
So I took notice when a press release arrived today announcing that London dealers Trinity House Paintings would in October open a gallery on East 64th St., just off Fifth (below). Did it mean that more good material from that era was becoming available? Or that the interest of NYC collectors was turning backward to that era?
Unfortunately, when I looked at the Trinity House website, I think it means neither. Unless the owners, Simon Shore and Steven Beale, who founded Trinity House in 2006, are holding their firepower back to reveal first in NYC, their offerings are disappointing. Click on the boldface entries on this artists’ list, and you’ll see what I mean. Cezanne is there, but with what? Likewise so many other great artists. And the list has many non-great artists.
This seems to mean that owners of Impressionist and 19th Century paintings (Modern, too) will still see better material — for the most part — at auction, probably because there’s enough demand to sell publicly (not that every piece does, but the good ones get great prices).
It also seems to mean that a couple of young British dealers want to be in New York, which is a good thing. They’re ambitious. They have their original gallery in the Cotswolds (the pretty tourist town of Broadway) and one in Mayfair, London.
One of them, Shore, gives another reason in the press release, saying that he “foresees that the New York art market will be the strongest trading platform in the next two years, subsequent to the Droit de Suite laws imposed in Europe.”
Trinity’s opening exhibition is to be called From Constable to Cézanne | Inaugural Exhibition by Trinity House Paintings NY; it includes the George Stubbs Portrait of A Gentleman, 1781, which it’s offering for $3.8 million. Once owned by Paul Mellon, the painting was also up for sale at the 2010 edition of the annual British Antique Dealers Association — the highest price item on offer, with a price tag then of “over £2m,” according to the Financial Times.
That wasn’t in the press release.