What else are you going to invest in right now? Art doesn’t evaporate, and the people who came out tonight knew they were getting quality works.
So said Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart (as quoted by Kelly Crow in the Wall Street Journal) after Monday’s Macklowe sale, in what was struck me as one of the most crass and callow remarks ever uttered by an auction-house official.
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
It was crass because the most astute and successful collectors buy art because they (or their savvy advisors) appreciate its cultural and historical value, not because it may appreciate in financial value; callow because Stewart is too new to the art business to have experienced some of its periodic (sometimes drastic) downturns.
I wrote the (out-of-print) book on that…
…or, at least, I wrote the chapter on it (luckily, not Chapter 11!):
As for quality, the Macklowe offerings were mixed, in large part because most of the greatest works of classic 19th- and 20th-century American and European art—the focus of the Macklowes’ holdings—have been taken off the table by museums and other mega-collectors.
Perhaps even more off-key than Stewart’s comment was the auction house’s gloating over its role in dispersing “the Most Valuable [Collection] Ever Sold at Auction” (in the words of the headline for its online recap). At some $922 million (with fees), the Macklowe trove did outstrip the $835.11-million auction total at Christie’s for the collection of the more widely (and justifiably) admired museum philanthropist and connoisseur, David Rockefeller and this wife, Peggy. The crucial distinction between the two Sales of the (still young) Century is that all of the Rockefeller estate auction proceeds were to be channeled to the philanthropies that the couple had supported during their lifetimes, whereas the Macklowe proceeds are being directed towards resolving their messy, acrimonious divorce—hardly cause for celebration. (So far, we haven’t heard of any Macklowe proceeds being directed to aid nonprofit institutions.)
After this week’s sales, Harry Macklowe had the audacity to boast (as quoted by Kelly Crow in the Wall Street Journal) that he “found it so satisfying” to see people chasing after works he lived with for decades: “I build skyscrapers, but I’m so proud to have built this nearly $1-billion collection, too.” That overlooks the key (if not dominant) collection-building role played by his now ex-wife Linda, who joined the Metropolitan Museum’s board of trustees in 2016, and is vice president of the Guggenheim Museum’s Board of Trustees. Those museums might have hoped (or even expected) to receive gifts or bequests of works from the now dismantled Macklowe Collection, belying Charles Stewart’s statement (at the top of this post) that “art doesn’t evaporate.”
Speaking of museums, the Metropolitan Museum had been an early owner of the Macklowe Collection’s record-setting Pollock:
According to Sotheby’s catalogue listing of its provenance, the enamel-on-canvas had originally been handled by Sidney Janis‘ pioneering New York gallery, from which the Met acquired it in 1952. Judging from the 1952 Pollock that Max Hollein chose to hang in his office, I’d imagine that the Met’s current director wish it hadn’t left—another instance of dubious deaccessioning.
Other notable disposals in this spring’s major sales (including one by the Met) have also taken a toll on what might have otherwise been part of the public’s patrimony. (I’ll have more on those in a future post.) For now, here’s a teaser—a recent piece by Christopher Knight of the LA Times, excoriating the Toledo Museum for unloading a Matisse, a Cézanne and a Renoir at Sotheby’s Modern Evening auction on May 17.
I’m going to leave you now to sample The Now—Sotheby’s auction this evening (which I’ll start watching online) catering to trend-chasing collectors. (Not sure how long I’ll stick with the livestream: I just got my second Covid booster.)
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