“Why should anyone want to buy a Cézanne for $800.000?
What’s a little Cézanne, a house in the middle of a landscape?
Why should it have value?
 

We make myths about politics, we make myths about everything…
My responsibility is the mythmaking of mythmaking material – which handled properly and imaginatively is the job of a dealer -
and I have got to go at it completely.”

Leo Castelli, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York 1997

 

Castelli is, without doubt, the most important art dealer in the USA of the 20^th Century, “discovering”, and marketing internationally: Rothko, de Kooning, Kandinsky, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Rauschenberg, Twombly, Lichtenstein et al.

“…..Years later, Castelli still relished recounting coups, preceding the gilded age of gilded price tags. “Just imagine, I had bought ‘Scent’ (Pollock’s final painting) for $3000 which back then (c.1967) was a lot of money for me. So one day, I went up to Joe Pulitzer’s place out in the country, and I looked around and I see this old friend of mine (referring to the painting). “Oh Joe”, I said “you got this one here, how lucky.” “Well”, he said, “I had to pay a stiff price for it……$350.000.”

“Now that painting, if I had it around today (1982), would probably be worth around $3M.”

 

From “Leo and His Circle”, Annie Cohen-Solal
Alfred A Knoph, 2009

 

In 2011, the University of Iowa Museum was legally prevented from selling their Pollock ‘Mural, 1943’, after receiving an offer of $150M for it (that’s TT$ 1Billion!)

 

"My vision of the future is that in ten years time you will be able to sell art like Goldman Sachs buys equities. The auction houses will look like stock exchanges ....Philip Hoffman says that his Fine Art Fund Group, which began investing in 2004, has made a 27% compound annualized return on the works that it has sold."

Melanie Gerlis
The Art Newspaper, February 2011

 

"As and example, in 2004 I sold my collection of 5 Isaiah Boodhoo paintings for which I got $320.000. This money was invested in mutual funds - now worth some $224.000. The paintings today would fetch about $500.000."

Mark N Pereira
Trinidad Guardian, October 2010

A postscript to this article: I have just been able to buy back one of the Boodhoo paintings I sold in 2004 - I had to pay 2 1/2 times the 2004 price! The mutual funds are still languishing!

 

 

 

PREVIEWS

For reasons of privacy, we will be previewing this exhibition and sale well in advance of the opening.

Appointments can be made for Thursday 22nd, or Friday 23rd from 10 am to 2 pm, or after hours by pre-arrangement.

To book an appointment please call Mark or Dulcie

628-4081 or 468-3477

 

 

"The market surprised a lot of people. It's fascinating - in 2008 and 2009, we had the worst recession since the depression. But two years later the machine is rolling at full speed.

People understand that if you have cash, you don't want to put it in the bank - it brings very little interest. The stock market is tricky....and it is a gamble. Art and real estate are very good hedges. And if you buy the right artist, not only is it a good investment, but you have a painting on your wall which you can look at every day and which brings amazing pleasure."

Christopher Van De Weghe, Art Dealer, New York
as reported in The Art Newspaper

'WE HAVE ART, SO THAT WE SHALL NOT BE DESTROYED BY THE TRUTH'

NIETZSCHE