Ruminations on my 30 years in the Art Market

I joined the gallery at the tail end of "the good old days" i.e. the mid 1960's. Clients would come in regularly to see what was new. No museum's curator or director would come to New York without visiting the galleries in their field. Within a decade a curator told me, "I don't have time to visit every gallery. If you have something for me, let me know." It was a clear signal that the art world was changing.

Though there have been significant developments in the last decades, many represent the swing of the pendulum. For instance, the hype and excitement generated by the major auction houses today existed already in 18th century France when auctions of prominent individuals estates took place.

Another example of hype, though not of the market variety, is the block buster exhibition. The phenomenon has been credited to Thomas Hoving as director of the Metropolitan Museum in its centennial year of 1970, but we have documentation of a block buster in 1929. In 1927 three Frankfurt firms, including I. Rosenbaum, acquired the unsurpassed medieval collection of the Duke of Brunswick. It was so important that they hired the three preeminent scholars of the day to catalog it. These gentlemen were so thorough, however, that their work was completed just in time for the German inflation and the Wall Street crash, making it impossible to sell the collection in Europe. As a result, the collection went on tour to museums in the United States and the public response was phenomenal. Clippings in our files show the lines of people waiting to come in to see the exhibition of what was known as the Guelph treasure.

One of the stops was the Cleveland Museum of Art and they bought the lion's share.

We were always very proud of all the works of art that Rosenberg & Stiebel has sold to museums. Today, however, we realize that there was a downside as well. Museums usually do not resell and dealers who can buy their objects back again from private collectors have a continuing source.

Thirty years ago, I remember Mrs. Henry Ford coming into the gallery and asking my father if she could consign a few pieces that she had bought from us some years before at her cost. When my father said, "of course", she marvelled that one could buy a work of art, enjoy it for years and then get one's money back. She said, "You can't do that at Tiffany's!" Within a few years some clients were embarrassed to go back to the dealer they had bought from because they wanted (and soon expected) a profit, so they went elsewhere first, even though the dealer who originally sold the piece might have been best placed to sell it again. Still, whatever the method, the art goes back into circulation to its next temporary custodian.

We have heard a lot about investing in art. The auction hype and the bull market of the 1980's made some people feel that art was a commodity, but there also seemed to be the perception, that unlike stocks, art should only go up in value. There was a rude awakening at the end of the decade! While it was extremely hard on the art dealer who had invested at the inflated prices of the late 80's there was also a relief that the market would slowly come back to normal... where the work of art came before the price!

Saemy Rosenberg always said, "he who has the objects does the business". It has proven true that if you could get the goods there would always be clients to buy them, even during recessions or world wars. We have a postcard in our files from the firm of Böhler in Munich. Mr. Böhler writes from Venice, "I bought several nice collector's pieces, although it is really very difficult to find good pieces here." The card is dated 1896! A century later one hears the same sort of lament from colleagues in the trade. Acquisition remains the most important and challenging part of the business.

We are often asked where do we acquire art. My response is that there is no one way, and that is the fun of the business. Sometimes we can buy back from a client (there are a few families that we have dealt with for several generations), sometimes at auction, and in recent times we have even gotten leads from the internet.

Of all the changes that I have seen the one that I find the most unfortunate is that the deal often seems to be more important than the art to many buyers. Happily, however, there continue to be a few true collectors (there never were many) and they are literally a dealer's pride and joy.

Gerald G. Stiebel