Art Market

Are dealers are “accessories” to an ethical violation if they agree to sell works of art for museums, like the Delaware Art Museum (pictured below), that are selling to raise money for capital or operational purposes? Accessories to criminal acts may, after all, be guilty of an infraction.

That’s the underlying question, but not my point, in a short piece I wrote, published today, on a  a new(ish) website based in London and with an international audience, mainly of art and antiques dealers.

The site, Art Antiques Design, was started by a former antiques dealer named Elliot Lee, and he describes it as “a virtual meeting place and a connector for art, antiques and design professionals. It is a bridge for integration, learning and dialogue between these three markets.” Lee says he advocates greater transparency in the art markets. 

My piece, headlined Ethics for Dealers: Deaccessioning, was meant to provoke thinking on the issue, not criminalize business. What I learned in the reporting of it is that none of the dealer trade associations I checked with, including the Art Dealers Association of America and the Private Art Dealers Association, mention the issue in their codes of ethics — if they have a code of ethics. Dealers are obviously self-policing, and just obviously these groups could expel a member for bad behavior. But wouldn’t it be better to have something written down?

I did not cover the auction houses in the piece — for obvious reasons. They usually get the business from deaccessioners for any purpose because they seem more transparent than private dealers. In actuality, probably just a little. But they are bigger, corporate businesses, and they’re not going to quibble about the motive of a consignor (most probably).

I’ve written two other short pieces for AAD, both much lighter in topic and tone. One was about Art Everywhere US, here, and the other a trifle on the Jeff Koons handbag offered to Whitney Museum members in an “exclusive” way that was not so exclusive under examination — but was a great marketing tool. 

You might check out AAD. I won’t be cross-posting everything here.

Photo Credit: Courtesy MC McGrath

Federal prosecutors have filed another forfeiture complaint, this one for a 13th century painting that had been up for sale in the Important Old Masters sale at Sotheby’s in January. Sotheby’s voluntarily pulled the painting and told Courthouse News Service that it had “cooperated fully with the government on this matter.” Sotheby’s has not been accused of wrongdoing. The troubling issues with the work surfaced when Sotheby’s was doing due diligence on the painting.

Courthouse News said the painting was a “Madonna and Child” (at right) listed in the catalogue as by a “Florentine painter within the ambit of Cimabue.” The painting had “disappeared from a Swiss safety deposit box nearly three decades ago was imported to the United State this year” to be auctioned, according to the forfeiture complaint.

It’s a complicated case, but here’s the gist, quoting from CN:

The complaint details a mysterious Feb. 6, 1991 report that Geneva police provided to Interpol investigating the theft allegations, which appear to involve a squabble over an inheritance from the late Camille Marie Rose Aprosio.

That report is thin on details about the lives of Aprosio and her family, and it is difficult to locate public information about them. Born Aligardi, Aprosio owned half of the painting when she died in 1980, and left her interest to her heirs Paulette and Roger Aligardi, according to the complaint.

These heirs designated as a representative to that interest a man named Henri Aligardi, whose relationship to them is not revealed in the complaint. The other half of the interest belonged to a man named John Cunningham, prosecutors say.

“In or about 1986, Henri Aligardi and Cunningham placed the painting in a new safe deposit box at a separate branch of UBS in Geneva,” the complaint states.

“The heirs of Camille Marie Rose Aprosio reported that Cunningham had also ceded a percentage of his interest in the painting to two other individuals, Michael Hennessy and John Ryan. Hennessy and Ryan subsequently reported that Cunningham had removed the painting from UBS to an account held at Lloyd’s Bank in Geneva and solely in Cunningham’s name.”

But no one appears to know what happened to it since then. And the report did not say who consigned the work to Sotheby’s — or where it is now. But the evidence must be pretty good for the U.S. Attorney’s office to issue a forfeiture complaint.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sotheby’s via Courthouse News

Last year about this time, I wrote here about the Spring Show at the Park Avenue Armory, lauding the use of color on the walls of the booths. This year it was  Spring Masters, New York — they called it and “inaugural fair” as it was under new management, but it is basically a reincarnation of the Spring Show. This year, it had the same array of colored walls — well, maybe a little less flashy: I didn’t see the bright red, yellows and greens that were there last year. But this year it had something else, as its website claims:

…a design by architect Rafael Viñoly that reimagines the visual impact, layout, and experience of the fair. Viñoly’s design includes hexagonal booths and floor plan that encourage and accommodate an array of presentation strategies. The redesign represents the most significant change in the Armory fair format in three decades…

So the design — see the map I’ve posted — had two aisles instead of three, and a couple of clusters in the middle. That was supposed to be more relaxing, but I found it a tad confusing — I had to double-back occasionally to make sure I had seen every booth. As for the hexagonal booths, dealers told me they were intended to give them more wall space. Maybe you can tell a little from the pictures I’ve posted. I was told that about 95% of the visitors said they liked it. I didn’t mind the new layout, but I think SOFA, the design show, which had bare floors and very spare booths, was more radical than this. I still like the colors of this show, which when well chosen really bring out the artworks.

Photo Credits:  © Judith H. Dobrzynski