Palm Beach Breathes Out Again

Published: May/June 2009
by Kelly Compton

Whew! Among the most anxious people in the art world these days are those who organize fairs. Having become the focal point of the market’s boom years, fairs stand the most to lose in the recession now upon us.

Fortunately, two fairs held in Palm Beach, Florida, this February weathered the storm admirably, despite the damage wrought upon many locals by Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Attendance totaled 24,000 at The American International Fine Art Fair (AIFAF), the 14-year-old event newly renamed to distinguish it from the larger, mid-market fair that follows, which welcomed 50,000 visitors.

The key to AIFAF’s success was not only its shortening from 11 to 6 days, but also the return of its charismatic founders, David and Lee Ann Lester, who worked closely with a committee of 31 dealer-exhibitors who had already pledged to show at AIFAF through 2011.The 70 galleries participating this year (down 20 from 2008) included several market leaders such as Adelson (New York) and Steinitz (Paris) that had dropped out long ago.

Although plenty of guests came only to kick tires, most dealers walked away having sold something important, or having obtained promising new leads. Adelson sold Andrew Wyeth’s painting Winfield’s Porch for more than $5 million; M.S. Rau (New Orleans) a Monet landscape for $1.2 million and several other works for six figures; Galerie Thomas (Munich) a Max Ernst sculpture for $100,000; and Jacques Bailly (Paris) five Raoul Dufy paintings in the range of $55,000-75,000 each. Terminus (Munich) reported sales of paintings worth $3 million in total.

Although the works at this AIFAF were generally less spectacular than last year’s, there were still numerous gems. Particularly fine was the large oil painting of the moon’s surface offered by Carlton Hobbs (New York). Painted in 1888 for Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden by Julius Grimm (1842-1906), this highly textured canvas shows the full moon as one could never actually see it — with all craters and seas picked out simultaneously. Grimm was a much-admired scientific photographer who painted this one-off by consulting his own archive of photographs. In true German form, the artist even placed an arrow on the left side to show his noble client the direction from which the picture should be lit: “Otherwise… the effect could be completely lost.”

During the subsequent five-day run of The Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show, more than 200 international exhibitors offered more than 200,000 items. Dinan & Chighine (Kew, England) sold a set of 18th¬century botanical engravings by Johann Wilhelm Weinmann for prices ranging from $9,950 to $26,000; Rehs Galleries (New York City) several paintings including an oil by the Post-Impressionist Louis Valtat for $30,000; and Thomas Colville Fine Art (New Haven, CT) an important painting for six figures. Needless to say, these results are encouraging, and we are already looking forward to the 2010 editions of both fairs.