The Role of Art & Antique Dealers An Added Value
buyers in the US, and he was responsible for assembling parts of some of the great collections of European art there.
The burgeoning US art market did begin to slow with the 1929 stock market crash, however, there were still strong sales in certain sectors. A notable example was in 1931, when a consortium of dealers including Colnaghi of London, Knoedler’s in New York, and Matthieson in Berlin sold a group of masterpieces to Andrew Mellon to form the foundation collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
However, through the Second World War, the US art market grew steadily both from external buying in war-torn Europe and internally with emerging abstract expressionist artists, supported by gallery innovators such as Peggy Guggenheim, and later by contemporary dealers such as Leo Castelli.
In 1935, CINOA (the Confédération Internationale des Négociants en Oeuvre d’Art) was established in Belgium and incorporated the most responsible art dealers’ associations in both Europe and America.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, Paris saw a temporary revival, however, over the 1960s, London and New York dominated, largely due to their established bases of wealth and economic power, and because of the introduction of a new system of taxes on art sales and other regulatory deterrents that drove both buyers and sellers away from France to more liberal trading regimes.
The major auction houses of Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Parke-Bernet in New York thrived, and began to attract wider interest from wealthy collectors, particularly for Impressionist and Modern art sales. In previous decades, auctions had tended to be attended by few highly informed dealers that understood the market and purchased at lower prices for resale, however, during the 1960s and particularly in the recessionary early 1970s, art was touted as a hedge against rampant and escalating inflation, attracting increasing numbers of retail clients. Super- galleries such as Marlborough Fine Art also emerged with global outlets in various cities throughout the world to accommodate an expanding buyer base. Although sales in many sectors were eventually affected by wider economic events such as the oil crises in 1973, art was being increasingly bought both by collectors and investors.
Throughout the 1970s, the distinctions between the two international art capitals also became more defined: London took premier position for the trade in genres such as Old Masters, English and French 18th century art, and Asian antiques, while New York was the international centre for Contemporary art, Impressionists, and Post-Impressionists.
During the global prosperity of the 1980s, all established art centres flourished and it became hugely popular and profitable to buy art. The international art market entered a boom period from about 1987, marked by the emergence of record prices at auction for works of art,
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