The Art Newspaper

Armory Show-Modern: Quality up on last year

Much of the best work on offer has been teased out of private collections

By Brook S. Mason | From Armory daily edition, 5 Mar 10
Published online 5 Mar 10

Edvard Munch’s Coastline near Aasgaardstrand sold for $6m

By close of play on the opening day of the Armory Show-Modern, the section on Pier 92 devoted to classic modern art, one of the most expensive works at the entire fair, Edvard Munch’s Coastline near Aasgaardstrand, around 1895-98, which had an asking price of $6m, had been sold by Danish dealer Jens Faurschou (P92/310) to a private collector. The presence of the Munch, which came from a private US collection, is indicative of the far higher quality of work on sale compared with last year’s edition. Galerie Thomas (P92/213) from Munich is showing prime examples of work by Kandinsky, Josef Albers and Anselm Kiefer, while GAM Galleria D’Arte Maggiore (P92/210) from Bologna has an outstanding group of oils and etchings by Giorgio Morandi.

Much of the best work on offer has been teased out of private collections. Faurschou has dealt in Munch since the late 1990s and played an important role in the publishing of the artist’s catalogue raisonné by the Munch Museum in Oslo. Similarly, Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art (P92/104) is showing a museum quality Sam Francis, Blue Balls I, 1960, priced at $2.8m, which has resided in a Japanese private collection for two decades.

It is too early to say how many of these high price items will find buyers. However, they have attracted keen interest from collectors. “The scale of serious reserves is astonishing,” says Jörg Paal of Galerie Thomas. The quality of work has also captured the attention of museum curators. “This fair is only two years old, but already I’ve seen curators from MoMA, the National Gallery in Washington, DC, Pittsburgh’s Carnegie and the Philadelphia Museum of Art along with Californian institutions. That’s quite an achievement,” said Sueyun Locks, director of Philadelphia’s Locks Gallery (P92/212). The narrowing of the gap between the Art Show, staged by the ADAA for the past 22 years, and the fledgling modern show on Pier 92 is reflected in the overlap of six dealers showing at both fairs.

Although it is still too early to call, the overall mood among dealers was optimistic—especially compared with the grimmest days of 2009. “This year, we have a studied confidence,” said Michael Gitlitz of Marlborough Gallery (P92/402). This was on the back of selling the marble figure Infanta Margarita, 2010, by Spanish sculptor Manolo Valdés for $350,000 to an American collector within minutes of the fair opening. This mood was echoed by Stockholm dealer Björn Wetterling of Wetterling Gallery (P92/316), who sold a Roy Lichtenstein acrylic on wood, Brushstroke III (1986, edition of ten) for $250,000. “Miami was great,” he said, “but Palm Beach was barely OK and Arco [Madrid] was a disaster. Pier 92 is proving solid already.”

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