Clinton Howell Antiques

Reading Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s editorial in the New York Times yesterday on how history should inform our actions is a little like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. I can sense his frustration, however, and his inherent criticism of the American policy makers of today.

I received a copy of the New England Antiques Journal today and in it were the erudite words of John Fiske, a dealer in country furniture in Vermont. John is a friend who enjoys the simple pleasures of this world and he is also intelligent and writes beautifully about how trends and trendiness have no place in the world of antiques. Buying furniture of any era, he asserts, is a decision that should be made because a person feels comfortable with a style, nothing more and nothing less.

I would like to think that all our decisions are pragmatic and arrived at rationally. Unfortunately, whether we run the US government or we are buying furniture because it is trendy, we inevitably err and do things that may not be so wise. My wish for 2007, I have no resolutions because of antipathy which may suggest a certain resolve of its own, is that whatever level a decision is made on that it be well informed.

Paul Theroux wrote an editorial in the New York Times this morning about world population and its affect on him and, to some extent, the rest of us. It is a crowded world for sure. Theroux talks more about how the crowding is changing our outlook, not on what should be done about it. That needs no explanation, but I will beat the drum for him.

Does immigration reform slow down population growth? No. The people coming into the USA are looking for space and growth opportunities and are already existent. Besides, world population growth is a world wide phenomenon so any solution has less to do with laws than with man's common sense.

Population growth as it is today is the single greatest problem we face on earth. Global warming, energy shortages, clean air and water are outgrowths of this problem. Why the world has done nothing to solve this problem will only lead to catastrophes whether they are natural such as last year's Tsunami in the Indian Ocean or Katrina in New Orleans, or man made such as wars and famines in Darfur and Iraq, oil spills, unsafe working conditions such as those in Bhopal and the Russian reactor that blew up, viral outbreaks resistant to medication, etc. ad infinitum.

Why isn't the problem being addressed? The Catholic church gets more money the more Catholics that exist in this world. China and India, whose populations show no sign of slowing reap enormous power at having a virtually infinite work force. Capitalism, and by extension globalization, thrives on expanding markets, i.e., a greater population. The vested interests in unchecked population growth are enormous. The sanctity of human life is a paradoxical concept for those whose life begins and ends in abject poverty and disease.

It just makes you want to be a Canadian.

And by the way, Holland Cotter should be boiled in oil for grouching about the rather superb exhibits currently on view in New York saying that, and I paraphrase because I did not save the article, the exhibits showed us nothing new about the art on display. Horse manure! Every time I look at a good (it does not have to be great) painting, my mind gets something else to think about. New York City was extremely lucky this year and it is hardly likely we will again have such chances in the near future.

My first Christmas in England required a small adjustment on my part. When I said, "Merry Christmas", I was informed that it was "Happy Christmas" and furthermore a "Merry New Year". A "Merry New Year"? An entire year or making merrry? My mind conjured up dancing elves in the forest celebrating ad nauseum, perhaps because making merry is the stuff of fairy tales and happy endings.

I wised up and stopped wishing people anything. Fast forward to political correctness and it is now, at least in the USA where making merry is circumscribed by the 25th of December, "Happy Holidays". Whew! I think if we all said good morning to each other as often as possible, we'd come a damn sight closer to making merry and possibly become a civilized nation. (Believe me, I know it ain't easy to do every morning.)

Peace on Earth remains my favorite apothegm. Meanwhile, "Happy.......,"

The New York Times had an article yesterday about a house that is going to be torn down in Westport. A modernist house designed by Paul Rudolph, a student of Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus Movement, it has, according to its owner, great views of Long Island Sound. It has been sold to someone who wants to raze it and build something not so modern.

Having grown up in the era of American modernist architecture, I well remember the use of plexiglass, glass, unfinished woods such as teak, white marble and vinyl with the occasional shag rug thrown in as the interiors of these houses. The light of these houses was always great, but the interior design, a lot of light fixtures that looked like geometric exercises and furniture with brass tipped feet was cold. It was an era banking on the future of basic geometry in home design, sort of an ex post Deco.

The memories of that era are sketchy, but what I can't get over is how we are seeing the decorating of that era resurfacing. It was simplistic then and is now. Deco had guts and glamor. But maybe simple is what is  required for today. I am not certian whether it matters that the houses that this stuff were made for are disappearing. Someone always seems to care, which is a good thing, but then the world always moves on and good tends to be both forgottern and remembered. I guess this house and all the others like it are just waiting for.......,

Michael Kimmelman's review in the New York Times of the Velasquez to Picasso exhibition at the Guggenheim gushed with praise. I went to it yesterday and I have to say, even though my knowledge of art is limited, there are pictures in the exhibition that will stay in my mind for a long time. Spanish artists took the power of their art very seriously as they revealed their subjects in ways even the sitters might not have realized.

I cannot condemn contemporary art as there is probably a great deal out there that is superb. Bill Jacklin, for example who exhibits at the Marlborough Gallery. What I am mystified by is a great deal of installation and/or conceptual art. This is not to question the artists, but instead to try and understand why our culture seems so enamored by what is often, in essence, relatively obscure cultural references. I remember an isntallation of a brick wall at the Tate. Huh?

I bumped into an old master drawing dealer friend at the Guggenheim and he was beside himself with what he was looking at. "Phenomenal, spectacular, once in a lifetime" were his words. He then said he was going to see the greatest collection of art in the world shortly. I missed the irony and exhausted the obvious locations quickly. "Art Basel in Miami" he said with a chuckle. He shrugged and walked to the next painting.

The life of the antique dealer is to spend money, or to more accurately acquire goods, if possible, every day of the week. Many of the women that come into my gallery think it an ideal existence. Some of the men do as well, but the women readily admit it. I have to admit to both liking and not liking the process of acquisition.

I have watched things accumulate in my life for years. Pieces, some of them rare and wonderful, often don't sell. And that is only a part of the problem. Some of the things I buy need restoring again and again because they get moved about so much. Then there is the other side of the coin. Some things come and go with me seeing them for the briefest of moments. I like to get to know my inventory and some of it moves too quickly for me. Where is the satisfaction in that?

If the daily bread of a dealer is to buy something every day, then the mantra should be that the oldest thing in inventory should sell every day. I could live with that.

It is hard not to write a paean to the Met after the two exhibitions and two and a half hours of other things that I took in last night. The two exhibitions, "Cezanne to Picasso" and "Americans in Paris" are superb. The rest, I mean the museum at large, is as well.

"Amercians in Paris" made me realize that American artists had an enlightened view of women that was not generally shared by their European counterparts. Women, and Sargent's "Madame X" is a prime example, were seen as confident, self aware characters. Compared to Renoir's chubby happy women, naked or otherwise, who seem destined to be mothers or temptors, American artists portrayed ambitious and strong women capable of being social equals. And the American artists were every bit as gifted as their European counterparts, something that I was taught as not being the case.

What else can you say about the explosiveness of painting from 1860 to the First World War? Lots, but what is really clear is that the art world has never really had such a productive time period since. Today's art, at least the art that is in the headlines, seems both clever and devoid of character. The paintings I saw last night were not clever, or at least not clever in the sly sense. (The one exception might be Gauguin's work whose self awareness is so very apparent and just a little boring.) The sly, commercial cleverness was to come as the art market changed into something driven more by the market and less by the artist's vision.

I have been critical of the Met in the past. Not so much for what it does, but for what it does not do. However, it is almost impossible not to be impressed by what is on display. It is well lit, well displayed and the place is serene and yet social. This is how all museums should be.

It is hard to ignore the auction houses as they churn out sales with hundreds of pieces of furniture, all in a week. I'd like to be able to say that I don't care, but I do. The auction experience is just so...., I can't really think of the right word. But to me, I look at the amateurs buying at auction as the sort of people who would order shoes from a catalogue. Be prepared for blisters!

Why do I talk so much about the sale rooms? Well, there is a great deal to say. The negatives are many, and to give equal time, there are a few positives. But their practices would fail any free market analysis and there is an essential conflict of interest. You cannot represent both the buyer and the seller. It isn't possible and no other business allows it. There is lots more, but that is the real nut that no auctioneer can explain away.

However, I have to let this theme go as I start to resemble Don Quixote. Although there are a great many communities tilting at wind mills these days because of the absurd government subsidies for erecting them, willy-nilly through the windswept countryside. That is another story, of course, but I think Don Quixote has been vindicated just a little bit. After all, when wind mills prove to be dragons, you can't be quite sure of what to slay next.

I think America has been infected by something far worse than any flu epidemic or natural disaster. America has decided to take spin, the taking of reality and making of it something that it isn't, and place it along side truth as a reality of its own making. The Republican administration has been doing it quite well so the rest of American industry is giving it a go, although I have to say that I still remember the photo of those tobacco executives lined up at a congressional enquiry swearing that tobacco causes no harm. Maybe that's chutzpah, not spin.

I say this because of the article I mentioned in my most recent blog in the New York Times about how the auction houses were calling single owner sales, taste making events. They said that such single owner sales gave a chance for their clients to define their taste by seeing what so and so was putting on the block, whether he was a private individual or a dealer.

Did I read the article correctly? Why not go straight to the dealer? You need to wait until an auction house has a sale of a dealer's inventory to learn about taste? Is this just a tad illogical? Dealers define taste, that is what their lives are about. That is why they buy and sell. I thought the spin cycle was round and round, but in this case, it is topsy turvy.

An observation often made about the differences between auction houses (the two and half biggest ones) and dealers is that dealers usually do their business out of passion and the auctions fo the sake of doing business. Like many seemingly poignant observations, the profundity of the statement loses traction under close observation. There are dealers that are in business solely to make a fortune and who have no passion and there are people at the auction houses who put their heart and soul into their work.

Of course, all dealers are in the game to make money. That is axiomatic. And auction houses also have to please their share holders. Not all dealers that are passionate about what they do are good people so this dichotomy is not one of the good guys versus the bad.

The point is actually a lot more subtle than who is right and who is wrong. The underlying principle is that dealers have to sell in cold blood, face to face with their clients. There is no presale estimate, the goods are (usually) ready to place in a home, there are no underbidders or false reserves, there is just the dealer and the client and he has to convince the client that what he is buying is worth it and that he is worthy of knowing all about the piece. This is where the contrast between dealers and auctions lies.

The NY Times had an article about single owner sales and people trying to learn about style from such sales. I find this quite risible as they point out the Tony Ingrao and Segoura sales held at Christies and Sotheby' respectively. These are dealers after all. Substitute the word private collection with dealer and you have the reason why people should shop with dealers. Spin is so named for a reason.

Sotheby's auction house had their fine English furniture sale the other day as well as a private collector sale of the goods belonging to Martin and Gloria Gersh. Martin was a remarkable man, full of piss and vinegar and unflagging intelligence. I met him when we was in his late 70's and his dynamism  shone out.

Sotheby's estimates of the Gersh goods was strong. A wonderful pair of walnut Gainsborough open armchairs were listed to sell for $600-800,000 and made $450,000 which with the commission adds up to $540,000. This was the reserve, or the price at which they were allowed to sell on agreement between the estate and Sotheby's. The estimates were clearly designed to attract private clientele, better known as the retail trade, who could compare and contrast Sotheby's prices with those of the antique dealers.

The ploy is generally a successful one as it allows the retail trade to believe that, at worst, they are paying retail to Sotheby's and, if they are lucky, they can buy close to what a dealer would pay. Right? Not necessarily. Dealers have considerations that go beyond whether a piece is a bona fide antique. They include whether the piece is up to their standards as defined by condition and color and, in today's market, rarity.

For example, the Gersh walnut chairs mentioned above were quite lovely. The carving was fine and the proportions were excellent. The color, however, was very bleached out, as if they had been stripped. This neither negates the value of the chairs nor does it make them unmarketable--they are still good chairs, but it does limit their appeal. Indeed, at the International Show, there are a pair of in mahogany with lovely color that I liked better than the Gersh chairs and they were not that much more expensive. The dance between the dealers, the clients and the auction houses continues.

The semi-smiling face of Damien Hirst on the front of the New York Times weekend "Arts and Leisure" section dressed in ghost busters white forced me to focus on this genius of conceptual art. I have a hard time with the term, conceptual art. I am not certain that it means art that is in the process of being conceived, art that is designed to let the viewer conceive what the art is or means or whether it is one of a billion permutations and combinations thereof.

There is no question that Damien Hirst is a genius. I don't get his art, but I get him. He is in a playground of his own making and there aren't too many of us that ahve been able to do that. All he needs to do is conceive, a process that I do all day long but for which I don't get paid.

I have gotten it all wrong so many times in my life that missing conceptual art is just another notch in the belt. I would have liked to be a lead singer in a rock and roll band, but I thought rock and roll was about to die in 1970. Whoops! I should have just conceived myself in that role, but I just didn't get the concept.

Antique dealers are always looking for home runs. That is to say, they are looking for items that are undervalued, so undervalued that you know you will make ten or twenty times your money. It happens, of course. Not as often as one would like, but it does happen.

And yet home runs may not be an easy sell. Home runs actually require the right person to see the item. These right people are as important to me as the home runs themselves. I could go to museums with them, watch a movie, do just about anything with them as they are the sort of people who look for and find subtlety, who are not obsessed with finding something that fits but who want something that is great.

There are a number of dealers that qualify as home runs. These are the dealers who understand greatness. More often than not, someone who has made a life's work of being an expert in one field understands subtlety, craft, and aesthetic value in other fields. Not always, however, which is quite surprising. This is a business first, I suppose, but it is hard not to believe in romance.

Listening to the radio the other day while on a road trip, the station I was listening to was interviewing a number of Nobel Laureates. Two cosmologists, Dr. Smoot and Dr. Mather were extremely interesting. They made it clear to me that we are but a speck in the ocean of space and even that is too definitive.

What is truly amazing is that prior to the Big Bang, the dark space that we were, I forget the precise term for it, was likely to be no more than the size of a tennis ball. I understand the concept when I think this planet holds nearly three billion people at the moment and that number will double in the next fifty years. Go find the bunk beds now. No economy should ever have any trouble growing given this particular statistic.

Antique furniture, however, is finite. The amount of it diminishes. It is getting harder to find. There is probably a mathematical theory for this, but being more arts oriented than math or science oriented, I would not know quite how to express it. All that I can say is that if you want it and can afford it, you should buy it now.

In a review in the New York Times this morning of the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition of drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the author remarks on Leonardo's belief in "sapere vedere" or "knowing how to see". Truer words were never spoken and I feel that a goodly number of people in the design and art world should pay much greater heed to this maxim.

To truly understand any art subject, you must train your eye. It is not a "natural" attribute that people are born with. Yes, some people are quicker at picking things up, but that has always been the case. I still don't understand chemistry, but fortunately, it is not a visual prerequisite for an English furniture dealer.

It is quite easy to learn how to look at things, but it does take time. There is really no excuse for not being able to identify the most rudimentary aspects of furniture, from the timbers they are made from to the styles they (claim to) represent. Would I say that an expert must know all these things? Yes, absolutely! Leonardo definitely had it right.