The art world’s abuzz with the sudden closing of Knoedler & Company. The New York Times provides a glimpse of not only the company’s history, but their recent vicissitudes. Of course, all things are exacerbated by the weak economy but a phrase in Patricia Cohen’s article, that Knoedler’s prospects ‘darkened’ after the company passed out of family control, captures perhaps the essence of what’s happening in the retail art world today. As with the Duveens, the Wildensteins, and the Knoedlers, relationships established with clients were historically embodied in the personalities of the eponymous gallery owners, who knew their clients, built their collections- while taking in exchange art work that no longer met their collecting objectives, but simultaneously exchanging them for others pieces that did- and, very often, appealing to the better angels of the collectors’ nature, the result of which the collections amassed were, in the fullness of time, brought to a wider view by their ultimate gift to a public institution. Mind you, the salesrooms have always offered some sales competition, but the personal service that a private dealer can offer was, and is, incomparable.
Trust me, the relationship aspect of this business is very much alive and well, and Chappell & McCullar would doubtless have dismounted its front of house shingle a number of years ago had we not been aware of it. Knoedler’s has for many years been investor owned, and, for all investors, sooner or later there has to be a payday. And, it must be admitted, paid staff, even at the highest levels, have less of a commitment to client relationships than they do to meeting financial targets and the time consuming palaver necessary to satisfy the board of directors- time that would be better spent with clients. This has historically been a very, very high touch business, and remains so, and one discovers at one’s peril that clients can quickly go elsewhere.
There are plenty of ways a collector can acquire art, and, times unfortunately being the way they are, there’s plenty of good quality material on the market. It’s interesting, a few months ago I wrote a blog entry in response to the notion that the traditional gallery model doesn’t work, to the extent that, with so many ways to buy art- through salesrooms, through online sales platforms- the bricks and mortar gallery has difficulty competing. However, the gallery that proposed the question about the traditional gallery model was itself investor owned. It seems that those of us who do carry on as the main salespersons and general dog’s bodies of our own gallery would then seem to have an opportunity to survive in a business that we love, carrying on in the tradition of say, Joseph Duveen. With the demise of Knoedler, an object lesson presents itself for all of us that survive in this business, and that is that it is imperative to value and cater to client relationships above all else.