The American Art Fair

New York City

by Lita Solis-Cohen

Traditionally during the first week of December, Sotheby's, Christie's, and in the last few years Bonhams auction the best American paintings they can muster to an enthusiastic group of collectors who come to New York City from all parts of the country. This year many of the right players came for the sales, but many were in a wait-and-see mode; they came to observe. The right artists' names were in the catalogs, but not always the best examples of their work, and the discriminating audience left behind 40% of what was offered. Those with the wherewithal to spend were not in the mood, and others were looking for bargains or thought there might be even better opportunities in the spring.

Added to the mix for 2008 was the new The American Art Fair at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, 1083 Fifth Avenue. Last summer, Thomas Colville and Alexander Acevedo came up with the idea to hold a small show at the academy during the week of the auctions to show collectors that the dealers had depth of stock and often better examples than they could find at auction and at more reasonable prices.

Colville and Acevedo invited their clients to come, there was no admission, and they held an elegant opening party on Sunday night, November 30, the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Some wondered who would come at such a time, but there was a huge crowd (even though it rained cats and dogs), and people really looked at pictures and engaged the dealers in discussion while enjoying wine and exquisite food by Feast & Fetes.

Everyone loved the venue. "You can see these pictures in a gallery, but here they come to life," commented one collector. Many had never been to the National Academy before; those who did know the academy said it was the sort of show the museum could mount if it drew on its own collection.

The high-energy enthusiasm for American paintings and sculptures continued all week. Everyone was welcome. Curators came, and so did the curious; there were more than half a dozen sales, and follow-up is expected.

The fair did what it set out to do, which was to put the dealers in a good light and show the public that an auction is not the only place to purchase fine quality pictures. It was easy to see 11 top dealers in American art in one place at one time, and when word was out that it was worth seeing, no one interested in this segment of the market wanted to miss it.

When Colville and Acevedo asked the dealers to pay $25,000 to rent the National Academy, everyone said yes immediately. Catherine Sweeney Singer, executive director of the New York Winter Antiques Show, agreed to be the director. Stands were allotted by lottery; there was some switching and trading spaces. Walls were installed, upholstered in pastel linen above the chair rail, and every gallery fit into the second-floor spaces.

"We had to move in and out without attaching anything permanent to the walls," said Singer. "I wanted an installation to look like a parade of National Academicians, so I asked Daniel Meeker, a Yale University-trained set and lighting designer, to make it look like the walls belonged at the National Academy of Design. Where we could use the academy wall, the museum's own staff hung the pictures."

The economy had not yet gone into crisis mode when the show took shape, but when the auctions did not perform with their usual success, the dealers were delighted that collectors were exposed to their stock and to the idea that dealers can take consignments and negotiate sales in this challenging time.

There was an impressive array of American paintings from the 19th and early 20th centuries. "There are more than two hundred twenty works by one hundred forty artists, including five Blakelocks, five Bierstadts, four Kensetts, four Cropseys, four Martin Johnson Heades, two William Merritt Chases [both with Spanierman Gallery], three Eastman Johnsons [in three different booths], two John Frederick Petos," said Singer after she did a count.

There was not just quantity, there was quality. The galleries participating were Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Alexander Gallery, Avery Galleries, Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, Debra Force Fine Art, Gerald Peters Gallery, Godel & Co. Fine Art, Menconi & Schoelkopf Fine Art, Questroyal Fine Art, Spanierman Gallery, and Thomas Colville Fine Art. They brought a broad range of pictures and said they had more that could be seen at their galleries. They said they saw people they had not seen in years and made new contacts.

The fair was a success even though only half a dozen pictures sold. The show was during the same week that the National Academy sold two major works. As the dealers were packing out, a story broke on Lee Rosenbaum's blog CultureGrrl, which was picked up by the New York Times, that the National Academy sold two Hudson River school paintings to a private foundation in order to bolster its ailing finances and that the foundation has promised to exhibit them.

The sale of Frederic Edwin Church's Scene on the Magdalene from 1854 and Sanford Robinson Gifford's Mount Mansfield, Vermont from 1859 reportedly brought $13 million to the academy's coffers. The sale was sharply criticized by the Association of Art Museum Directors, which discourages museums from selling art unless the proceeds are used for acquisition.

In the New York Times, Carmine Branagan, the academy's director, was reported as saying that the sale was made after careful consideration by the institution's membership, which includes famous American artists and architects such as Jasper Johns, Wayne Thiebaud, and Frank Gehry. She said the sale is the only way for the 183-year-old National Academy, whose finances have long been troubled, to survive and exhibit more actively one of the country's largest collections of American art, all of which is donated. The academy owns more than 7000 works, most of which have never been publicly shown. The museum was open on Wednesday and Thursday during The American Art Fair, and fair-goers could visit the galleries upstairs for $10. Some did.

The irony was that the two pictures sold were donated to the academy in 1865 by painter and collector James Augustus Suydam, the poster boy for The American Art Fair. His self-portrait appeared on the advertisements and posters for the fair and on every dealer's badge.

For more information, visit (www.theamericanartfair.com).

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