Palm Beach bucks the trend

March 2009

PALM BEACH. Despite the gloomy economic backdrop that has rattled even the wealthiest Americans, there were brisk sales at David Lester’s latest acquisition, the newly renamed American International Fine Art Fair.

“Unlike anywhere else is this country, Palm Beach is remarkably resilient,” said Mr Lester. Significant sales at the fair included an Andrew Wyeth for $5.5m at Adelson Galleries, a Terence Tenison Cuneo 1965 oil of a locomotive for about $200,000 at MacConnal- Mason, and five Dufy paintings costing up to $75,000 each at Galerie Jacques Bailly.

In 1997, Mr Lester pitched a grand tent in West Palm Beach and drew international dealers to considerable acclaim. Four years later, he sold his two Palm Beach fairs to Britain’s DMG World Media for $18m. When disgruntled dealers pleaded with him to take back his flagship fair, he snapped it up last year, reportedly for the bargain basement price of $3m.

He revamped the fair by reducing the run from ten days to five, and persuaded the Norton Museum of Art to return as the vernissage beneficiary after a five-year hiatus. He also hosted a glamorous series of events, such as an $80,000 dinner at Mar-a-Lago, bussing in well-heeled collectors from Naples. As Adrian Mibus of Whitford Fine Art declared: “Palm Beach is not a morgue.”
Some of the favoured works fell into the “Palm Beach lite” category, but old masters were also under consideration. Dickinson director Hugo Nathan reported “serious interest” in a 1684 Luca Giordano study for a major fresco and a $14m Canaletto. Early on, he red-dotted Bonnard’s Bords de Rivière, 1911, for a new client. “We have a number of old masters in the pipeline,” said Richard Green managing director Jonathan Green, referring to a Salomon van Ruysdael. “In terms of advertising and getting people through the door, David Lester turned the fair around,” he added.

Meanwhile, Munich’s Galerie Terminus sold Roy Lichtenstein’s mixed media Airplane, 1978, for $3.8m and a Gerhard Richter painting for $1m. Asian art dealer Erik Thomsen sold a pair of gold ground screens by Tsuji Kako for just under $100,000 to a West Coast client, while Macklowe Gallery sold a 1903 Tiffany chandelier for a sixfigure sum.

Whereas New York luxury stores are suffering from weak sales, jewellery dealers at the fair were inundated with clients. “The slowing economy has been to our advantage, with investors perceiving diamonds as not being at all devalued,” said Peter Kairis of Graff, whose opening-night sales included a coloured diamond for “close to $10m”.

Still, some dealers believe the fair needs further tweaking. Terminus director Wilhelm Grusdat cited the need for “more contemporary dealers from continental Europe”. The fair also bore scars from the economic crisis—the brochure promised “85 international dealers”, but only 68 were on the floor. Nevertheless, the vernissage drew a record 3,600 visitors, and by the close, billionaires Wilbur Ross, Peter Brant, William Koch and Stephen Schwarzman were seen strolling round the show. B.S.M