André Emmerich: Erudite Dean of Contemporary Dealers

In interviews, André Emmerich, who died Monday at the age of 82, spoke with the erudite articulateness and elegant articulation of a scholar, not a salesman. Along with Leo Castelli and Sidney Janis, he was one of the deans of New York City’s contemporary art dealers, during an earlier era when the scene was much less diffuse and diverse than it is today.
But Emmerich was also deeply involved in the sale of archeological material, especially pre-Columbian art, and he was a thoughtful and persuasive spokesperson for the “other side” of the cultural-property debate: He argued that by imparting financial value to such objects, the art market stimulated the discovery of important pieces and insured their proper care, study and conservation. Were these objects not coveted by collectors and museums, far fewer would be unearthed and available for the public’s enjoyment and edification, he maintained.
But recognizing that the tide had turned against him, and that the image of dealers in this field had changed from respected to suspect, he reluctantly abandoned the pre-Columbian trade and focused on contemporary, where his stable most famously included Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney and the estate of Hans Hofmann, among many others.
In 2003, he published an article in the Wall Street Journal, Let the Market Preserve Art, expressing his provocative philosophy:
The tragedy is that by bandying about such terms as “stolen art,” “smuggled,” and “looted,” the retentionists claim the moral high ground. In fact higher morality, as so often, is best served by the free market.
His memoirs, My Life with Art (above), were due out this month, but some rewrites had not been completed at the time of his death, according to a spokesperson for Ruder Finn Press. No word on whether anyone will finish the job.