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PrintDon't give up on art
Despite down economy, art prices hold steady, sales continue
Even in a bad economy, sales are still strong for self-taught artist Edward Castle’s works, like this spit-and-charcoal painting at Tayloe Piggott Gallery.
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When Greg Fulton acquired an oil painting last winter called Giraffes by renowned wildlife artist David Shepherd, his first prospective buyers discovered it on their computer screens rather than a wall in his gallery, Astoria Fine Art, in Jackson.
“I put it on the website and had two inquiries from London,” Fulton said in February. “The market in Jackson may be slow, but there’s people looking to buy it in London.”
Stories like that should bolster the confidence of anyone wondering if art is a good investment. Even at a time of layoffs, foreclosures, bankruptcies and, in the art world, gallery closings, there is still a demand for quality work. The Internet has expanded the reach of galleries in small towns like Jackson, but whether buyers are shopping galleries in person, working their cell phones or Googling, they’ll find the kind of paintings or sculptures they love or the pieces by the particular artists they follow.
“Those people who are passionate about it can’t turn it off,” Fulton said.
It’s possible there are fewer buyers in the market than five years ago, but the laws of supply and demand can still work in artist’s favor. Let’s say a mid-career painter produces 30 pieces a year and has built up a following of 200 collectors. If, during the recession, the number of serious prospects drops to 100, “the demand still outstrips the supply,” Fulton said.
Tayloe Piggott, owner of the eponymous contemporary art gallery in downtown Jackson, believes in the power of art to enthrall people through economic ups and downs. Perhaps those who purchased paintings or sculptures in boom times because it was fashionable have now dropped out of the game, but the true collectors are still there, she said.
“Why do people buy art? Hopefully they buy it because they’re passionate about what they’re seeing,” Piggott said. “Once people have the bug for collecting, it’s not easily thrown away.”
Someone obviously had a bug to own Alberto Giacometti’s 1960 sculpture Walking Man I. In February, the piece sold in an auction at Sotheby’s in London for $104.3 million. Who knows if that buyer craved the cachet of owning a Giacometti or was smitten by the spindly figure itself; whatever his or her motivation was, the price set a record for art auction sales.
Robert Moeller, a consultant who lives in Jackson Hole part-time and does business as the Art Advisor, cautions against reading too much into that whopping purchase price. When a Russian oligarch or someone else with unfathomably deep pockets keeps bidding up an auction item until all competitors drop out, you can’t take that as a statement about the art world in general.
“It’s what I call a spike,” he said. “No one would say the market is flourishing or is going to flourish for a while.”
Still, as aberrations go, the Giacometti sale is a pleasant one. In Fulton’s words, “Obviously there are still people out there willing to pay top dollar for that right piece of art.”
Even less-lofty markets, like Jackson Hole, have some positive dollars-and-cents tales to tell. During the recession, prices for Dubois-based artist Greg
Beecham’s wildlife paintings have continued to escalate, Fulton said, and Maryland wildlife sculptor Bart Walter had one of the best years of his career in 2009, he said.
“The artists who kept producing and trying to improve their work are doing really well,” Fulton said.
Sheila Norgate, of Gabriola Island, British Columbia, who is represented in Jackson Hole by Diehl Gallery, is a case in point. Known for humorous and thought-provoking mixed-media works that combine birds and dogs with quirky text, Norgate never considered abandoning her vocation even temporarily when the economy headed south.
