The villain and the Old Master

SOMETIMES we are told who owns a work of art being offered at auction.

Sometimes we are not. When this Rembrandt drawing of a farmstead by the dyke at Diemen near Amsterdam made its auction debut - at Christie's in 1984 - its provenance was flourished as a trump card, for the sheet was one of a tranche of Old Master drawings up for sale from the celebrated collection of the Dukes of Devonshire at Chatsworth. Better still, before being bought by the 2nd Duke in 1723, it had belonged to the son of Rembrandt's pupil, Govaert Flinck. Now, Sotheby's, which offers it in New York on 25 January, and the vendor, are being rather more coy.

Back in 1984, the drawing was knocked down at pounds 290,000 to the British collector-cum-dealer Brian Pilkington, who promptly offered it at Sotheby's New York five years later with a bravura estimate of $800,000-$1.2 million.

It seems that the market resented such a hike in price, and the drawing failed to sell.

Subsequently, it was claimed by none other than Sotheby's majority shareholder and then chairman, Alfred Taubman, whose wife, Judy, has a taste for Old Master drawings. It was probably an astute buy, for the drawing comes to the block now with an estimate of $1.8-$2.4 million.

Two other Rembrandt drawings from Chatsworth were reoffered at Christie's in New York two years ago, and they - though arguably more poetical - fetched $3.4 million and $2.3 million respectively. Moreover, Rembrandt's farmstead drawing is to be sold by Alfred Taubman (below,) disgraced majority shareholder at Sotheby's it is unlikely that the market will see another Rembrandt landscape drawing - certainly from the Chatsworth collection - for quite a while.

As for Mr Taubman, it is perhaps unsurprising that he may be in need of some cash - not least because he is, reputedly, reluctant to relinquish his shareholding, despite pressure from Sotheby's board. A week after, the 76 yearold was found guilty by a New York jury of conspiring with the former chairman of Christie's to fix fees charged to their clients, the board announced that it was directing its executive committee to meet with his representatives to discuss the possible sale of the company.

Mr Taubman, who is due to be sentenced on 2 April (he faces not only a possible prison sentence but a substantial fine) may be loath to part company with his shares while their price is near their rock- bottom low but, ironically, the share-price is not going to improve while he is the majority shareholder. The most likely scenario is that someone will come forward to acquire all the shares at a price agreeable to all parties and take the company back into private ownership.

Young Americans' naked ambition

IT was a tough two months for the New York art trade - as for many another business - after the Word Trade Center disaster. There were no sales, and no payments. For those galleries that had mushroomed overnight in Chelsea during the late Eighties in the hope of cashing in on the current contemporary-art boom (rent cool gallery space, find hot artist, open Roladex, call friends) it proved the final nail in the coffin.

Most of these galleries, however, had already bitten the dust as a result of the downturn in the US economy, and few can lament their passing or their sincerity (most encouraged their artists to make what it thought the market wanted). The fat years may be over but, for the core of New York's 30 or so serious galleries, it seems that business is remarkably good.

According to Jose Freire at Team, a pioneering gallery which specialises in video work, December was the gallery's best month ever.

Team is now testing the temperature of the water in London, invited along with two other cutting-edge young New York galleries to participate in next week's ART2002 London Art Fair (Business Design Centre, Islington, 16-20 January).

The three take a bow alongside 12 selected UK galleries in START, the section of the fair which encourages emerging talent and more challenging works of art, and acts as something of a nursery (six galleries move to the fair proper this year). It is the first time that overseas galleries have been invited to join the 100 or so UK exhibiting galleries. Team is projecting video pieces in rotation, among them American artist Slater Bradley's The Laurel Tree, featuring the actress Chloe Sevigny. French artist Brice Dellsperger's highly complex offering, Body Double, stars a multi- pierced and tattooed transvestite who plays all 51 speaking parts. No doubt the body as well as the mind boggles. Prices $5,000-$25,000.

Leo Koenig, a 24-year-old dealer already hailed as the new Leo Castelli, promises two sculptures by Tony Matelli (did you see his lifesize and all too realistic vomiting boys lost in the wood at the Barbican?). Abandon is another lifesize and hand-painted cast, this time of 27 weeds growing out of the floor; his Ideal Woman is a decidedly un-PC locker-room joke, the 4ft-high figure naked but for her underwear, her flat head just the right height for a beer bottle.

Prices $27,000 and $21,000.

MARY Dinaburg of Dinaburg Arts, a private art curatorial company specialising in corporate collections as well as print publishing and dealing, is bringing a wide range of works on paper, prints and smaller paintings which are conceptually based but visually strong. She would like to see more of an interchange between New York and London galleries and has worked a lot with young British artists. Here, for instance, she is showing the likes of hand-cut digital prints by Richard Deacon (London dealer Bernard Jacobson returns the compliment by bringing American-artists to the fair, among them Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski and Frank Stella). Another Dinaburg speciality is publishing limited-edition artists prints for nonprofitmaking organisations - in London she unveils work by US artists made for Amnesty International ($650 apiece).

This year's event looks east as well as west. The fair - the largest and most significant showcase for contemporary art in Britain, which saw 38,000 visitors last year and generated sales of over pounds 12 million - is not only focusing on art spaces in the East End of London but hosting a selling exhibition of specially commissioned watercolours from Whitechapel Open and Open Studio artists to raise funds for the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Those intrigued at the prospect of what Rachel Whiteread or Bob and Roberta Smith might do with the medium should make haste to the charity preview on 15 January.

For more information, visit www.londonartfair.co.uk or call 020 7288 6005.

Copyright 2002
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