Wieneke Archive Book 4h : Art Sales Presscuttings

044 0444,1,0~4,10#40 Where art is more precious than gold From KENNETH BRASS IN london. THE fast-moving Rolls; -Royce set of international art dealers left London this week for the world's sun spots. After a season when more money changed than ever before, they set out in yachts for the Mediterranean, jets for the Bahamas and cock- tail -lounge cars for villas on the French Riviera. They arc the art people - the men who control the world art market. Many of them know nothing of the paintings they buy for millions, or of the artists who painted them. But they know what a Da Vinci is worth, how many Van Goghs are left in France. and they have a pretty fair idea of what a Sidney Nolan will fetch in 10 years time. They are the experts. And because a famous painting means more fin- ancially today than a gal- leon crammed with gold meant a few hundred years ago. they represent Govern - With this art buyer's bid at Sotheby's, London, £78,000 changed hands for a picture by Menet. ments, famous univer- sities, great collecting fam- ilies, all seeking to invest their surpluses in gilt- edged stock. Probably the safest in- vestments in the world to- day are investments in the old and new masters. London is the world headquarters of the art people, because it is in London that the two great auctioneers-Otristies and Sotheby's have their rooms. In these rooms the art people bid more than £A30 million for works of art in the year ended this week. It is little wonder, with the huge commissions they receive, that they consider the auction roorns as both offices and clubs. Contemporary artists, on the other hand, have called thorn the "graveyard of the arts." Christie's total for the season was istg11,508,931 - nearly twice as much as last year. Sotheby's notched up f stg 16.837,979. The state of affairs in the art markets can rightly he called inflationary. The upward curve of prices is probably steeper than in any other sphere, yet in the recent New York Stock Exchange slump art values welt un- shaken. America is still buying more art treasures than the rest of the win, !cl, and it is becoming difficult for small nations like Aus- tralia to get a toehold in the market ladder. As a stable stock, art works arc almost as good as gold. Nations Wth plenty of them should never base much trouble balandne their foreign re- serves. And this week, as Bri- tons reeled at the news that their foreign reserves Were down yet again, the Government could find some solace that they still had Sotheby's. But more and more of Britain's au reserves arc cro, sing the Atlantic. Occasionally a British collector outbids a for- eigner to keep a work in fie country - and the Government announces that the nation has added to its cultural treasure house. But when I visited Sotheby's I could see what Inc angry artists meant when they said the auction rooms were the grave- yards of the arts. Here, paintings have value but the financial value the art dealers place upon them. Yon can wander through the bare rooms disturbed only by an oc- casional small-time dealer fingering the cheaper prints and watercolours, and scribbling his profit margin in a notebook. You note the names: Renoir, Klee, Vlaminck, Yves 'fanguy, Picasso, Jaylensky, Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock. Bra- que, Schwitters, Dubliffel, Miro, Wols. And if you had a pot of paint you could have a go at improving any one of them without distract. ing the single attend- ant from his major job of selling threepenny cata- logues. Sotheby's arc looking forward to bigger sales still when the new season opens in October. 1~4.4.04,4,10010#4004,11#4.004.4.40#044P4P4Mf~#114,04.4.4MOMPONO.