Buying From Art Galleries
In order to get you started out among the art galleries on as sure a footing as possible, I sent a questionnaire to leading establishments in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. This questionnaire asked for the gallery's name and address; its chief stock in trade-or field in which it specializes; a list of the leading artists represented; and the starting prices for various media-oils, prints, water colors, drawings, and sculpture. At the end of the questionnaire was a request that the gallery owner set down, in his own words, his gallery's "point of view." Almost a thousand artists are listed in the galleries included. In my many expeditions to the galleries of New York I have naturally formed impressions of their personalities and character. Before we get to the statistical content that makes up the answers to my questionnaire, I would like to take you on a very quick tour. The galleries, like other businesses, tend to group together.
You will find buildings and blocks that contain many art galleries-so many, that if you were to walk only in these neighborhoods you would get an impression of a New York completely devoted to art. Actually there are over 300 galleries in New York City, so perhaps the impression is justified. But here is the amazing part: if you were to walk all over the west side of town, never crossing Fifth Avenue, you might wonder if there were any galleries at all. Perhaps there are customers on the west side, but the sources are east. Numerically speaking, most of the galleries are in the high Sixties and Seventies and the low Eighties of Madison Avenue. Walking just those 20 blocks, you can see any kind of painting, sculpture, print, drawing, rare book, artifact that the world has produced. It is not an all-inclusive collection, but you can taste a bit of everything: oils by old masters, incunabula, Expressionist, a bit of Benin sculpture, a Renoir drawing, a lit-up plastic construction, a plain still life (they still make them). Branching off the main stem are many other galleries, so that you find the side streets populated with works of art. And if you go as far east as Lexington there are more treasures. But the bulk are on Madison. Another great group of art galleries is located on 57th Street, with the heaviest concentration east of Fifth Avenue. This was the original gallery spot; but the rents got higher, the neighborhood more crowded, and the exodus to Madison began. But Knoedler stays. And in this general neighborhood you still find Janis, Downtown, Betty Parsons, Pierre Matisse. This is not the place for bargain hunting or young unknowns. If these galleries know your young painter, he's known! The great classics of the contemporary art world are shown here. To drop a few names: Shahn, Giacometti, Picasso, Matisse, Moore, Prendergast. And you will find old masters here, too. But old masters are in limited supply, of course, not only on 57th Street, but the world over. |