TEFAF: Europe’s Grandest Fair Projects Confidence

Andy Warhol Man Ray Pablo Picasso Chaim Soutine Jean-Michel Basquiat Lucio Fontana Wassily Kandinsky Louise Bourgeois

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“Right now, it’s certainly more positive to be outside of New York,” said New York dealer Angela Westwater of the city's Sperone Westwater. “I’m hoping for an onslaught.”

The fair, which officially opens tomorrow and runs through March 22, contains 239 exhibitors from 16 countries and offers vetted objects and paintings dating from antiquity to the present. Unlike, say, at the recent Armory Show in New York, which drew several of the same galleries, dealers have brought their most expensive fare to TEFAF, as evidenced by the rare and haunting Vincent van Gogh landscape at the booth of London’s Dickinson gallery. The Park of the Hospital Saint-Paul was painted in September and October 1889 while the artist was a patient there. Acquired by the vendor’s family in 1963, the 25½-inch-high canvas carries an asking price in excess of €25 million ($32 million). As of this writing, it had drawn interest mainly from television crews covering the fair.

Another standout work, at London’s Richard Nagy Ltd., is the recently rediscovered Egon Schiele painting Mother and Child from circa 1911. Unseen by the public for 60 years, the painting originally featured three Madonna-type figures, but was then cut by the artist. It carries an asking price of €8.5 million.

“Being very frank,” Nagy said, “last year it would have been €11 million. People are buying, but it may take a little longer to come to a decision. They may squeeze a little harder [in making the deal].”

“Getting the vendors to agree to the new price levels is the tough,” he added, “but they’re slowly being more realistic.”

Nagy said that an American collector and several museums were interested in the painting and that X-rays showed that Schiele had painted a portrait of his uncle on the same canvas in 1908, but scuttled that image for the current one.

New York dealer Christophe Van de Weghe had a thrilling start to his Maastricht debut after London jewelry magnate Laurence Graff visited the stand and took a close look at Jean-Michel Basquiat's Untitled (The Black Athlete) from 1982.

After waiting a bit on tender hooks, the dealer sold the painting to Graff for €3.5 million. Later in the day, this reporter buttonholed Graff as he strolled through the crowded aisles. “It’s a great, rare piece, and you buy them when you see them,” said Graff, who also bought another Basquiat boxer, known as “Sugar Ray,” at auction about 18 months ago, for some $8 million.

“I got this one at an amazing price,” marveled Graff, who has his own massive stand at TEFAF, featuring the rare and dazzling 20.02 carat “Blue Ice” diamond, on offer for a cool €25 million or so.

“The Basquiat,” enthused Graff, “is the best contemporary piece at the fair.”

First-time exhibitors Daniella Luxembourg and Amalia Dayan (from London and New York, respectively) have made a big statement with an edgy joint exhibition titled “Disasters” that gathers paintings and sculptures that explore “the transience of life, the certainty of death, and the promise of ruin.” Works range from an Andy Warhol car crash, priced at $4.5 million, to Pino Pascali’s Cannone “Bella Ciao,” a found-material dummy weapon in painted wood and scrap metal conceived in 1965, executed in the ’70s, and carrying a heavy-ammo asking price of $4 million.

“Disasters” saw some early commerce as Luciano Fabro’s Sullo Stato (1970), a lead-and-wood sculpture in the iconic boot-like contours of Italy, sold to a European collector for €700,000.

Luxembourg and Dayan’s most expensive entry is a fantastically gloomy Pablo Picasso still life, Poireaux, crane et pichet from March 1945. Luxembourg declined to reveal the price, but it is known to be an eight-figure number.