Dealers Sold on Armory Modern, Collectors Less So

Andy Warhol Sam Francis Pablo Picasso Edward Weston Constantin Brancusi Anselm Kiefer Joan Mitchell Tom Wesselmann

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“There’s serious interest in serious things,” said Chelsea exhibitor Nicholas Robinson. “But people are taking a lot of time to make up their minds.”

Robinson had sold an early Elizabeth Peyton drawing in graphite on paper, Winston Churchill at the age of five (1994), to a New York collector he hadn’t met before for around $25,000.

“He got a modest discount, so we didn’t get beat up too bad,” Robinson said.

The dealer was also waiting to hear about a reserve placed on an Alice Neel painting of a boy with his toys, Peter B. Kaplan (1950), priced at $295,000.

“I haven’t seen any Neel oil offered for under $300,000,” said Robinson. “We want to do business.”

New York, New York
If it seems a bit redundant for New York galleries to do Armory Modern, most locals seemed excited to be there, even if sales weren’t prodigious. “This is the painting I expect to sell,” says American art dealer Gary Snyder, pointing to a 1959 abstract work by Milton Resnick. Snyder has faith in the canvas, which is priced at $195,000, because he says it represents the kind of quality collectors are looking for. (A sister painting is in the collection of the Whitney Museum.) But he added that “at another time,” the work would be priced around $280,000. Snyder said he finds the two-pier fair “fascinating” because it allows collectors to make direct comparisons between the prices of 20th-century masters and the art of today.

Another dealer in American art, Michael Rosenfeld, had sold a 1941 abstract painting by Werner Drewes for $170,000 to an American collector, and has had “strong interest” in a 1987 Joan Mitchell painting priced at $2.6 million. “This fair looks great,” said Rosenfeld. “The quality of the crowd is what one hopes for. We’ve brought the best of the best at fair prices.” The Drewes work, he said, is the largest of its kind.

Robert Fishko of Forum Gallery had sold a Jules Kirschenbaum painting from c. 1950 to an American collector for $40,000, but he praised the fair in particular for exposing hometown dealers to “a different crowd than we’re used to seeing,” namely, international collectors who fly in for fair week. “These are serious, knowledgeable people, and they ask the right questions.”

As for those New Yorkers dealing exclusively in photography, Yancey Richardson had sold several of Sharon Core's photographs of still lifes after Old Master paintings for $6,500 apiece; one went to what gallery director David Carmona would only describe as “a great American museum.” And Bruce Silverstein had parted with several archival pigment prints from 2006 by Shinichi Maruyama for $7,500 apiece. He also had on offer a selection of works by Weegee and Aaron Siskind, rare examples of works by Robert Mapplethorpe and Edward Weston, a full wall of Robert Frank, another of John Coplans, and a 1963 Diane Arbus print for $325,000. “Photography is still undervalued,” he said.

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction. Additional reporting by Sarah Douglas, Staff Writer at Art+Auction.