For those of my gentle readers of a connoiseurial bent, you’ll without prompting recognize my blog title derives from Outsider II, the last instalment of the memoir of the late critic Brian Sewell. Mind, I am not so much afflicted with inflation of ego to think myself a latter-day Sewell. Well, not so much, but if I’m honest, more than a smidgen.

A question Sewell never asks but that occurred to me, drawing a parallel between his late in life confessional- not apologia- and mine is when does an enfant terrible, one possessed of strong opinions, controversial, perhaps, but well-reasoned, turn into a curmudgeon? Of course the immediate difference is the advance of age, but the one less obvious, except to the former enfant is that the curmudgeon’s opinions, while remaining well and often better reasoned, are no longer given much if any regard. ‘An old man’s ramblings…’ as Sewell would put it, and with this I take exception. If anyone were to be considered a connoisseur, it was Sewell, and had he thought about, which I am sure he did but didn’t put it succinctly into print, connoisseurship is not the province of the young. It can’t be. The honing of one’s eye, the development of one’s intellect, and the mingling of the two in proper measure to yield a confluence wherein aesthetic appreciation is wedded to intellectual understanding takes years, and a very many of them.  

Of course, any one who has written an essay for which they received as little as a second-class mark can write a review of an art exhibit, regardless of the attendant subject upon which they’d written. And in this age of the tweet, a thoroughgoing consideration of anything gives over first place to brevity. Tweets aside, one has to attend very many galleries and see very many artworks before one can truly deliver a considered opinion. And when I say ‘considered’ I mean more than a popular response to something that passes for artwork that’s at best an objectification of contemporary zeitgeist.  

In this, Sewell in his reviews, indeed in all his writings, is pointedly free of the presentism that pervades contemporary artwork and the presentist blather criticism that seeks make some sense of it. ‘Presentism’- were Brian Sewell to read this, I’d get a proper dressing down for using this modern-day neologism. ‘Fashionable nostrums’ would be and archly synonymous- and directly quoted from the late critic.  

Over the course of this last week, I twice visited a popup gallery that’s housing work from living artists, the sale of which will benefit a not-for-profit contemporary art gallery. And based on what prices that were asked, I hope the artists will also be compensated. They should be, of course- ‘starving artist’ is a trope that works well in opera but is not very comfortable in the living when one receives a notice to quit or pay rent from the landlord. One chap, perhaps the canniest of the group, was offering a pricey NFT. I doubt he’s starving. 

While the work on show, to an artist, depicted not unsurprising themes of the despair wrought from the unfair rigours of modern life- all legitimate concerns, I’ll grant- not a single object was anything I actually felt an affinity for- a dearth, as Berenson would have it, of tactile values. The second trip I’d made in the company of my partner Keith McCullar, who queried ‘Should a person have to talk themselves into making a purchase?’ And for me the answer must be no. Mind, a few, indeed many, of the works were good examples of craft in a variety of media. For those figurative works, and again, there were many, the narrative content could be understood prima facie. Nothing occult or with abstruse iconography.  

But also nothing that my own eye, which is not entirely without practice, could conceive of ever entering the canon. I cannot help but then consider again the fellow trying to flog the NFT. As he was visiting from the major art market city where his studio is located, he was something of an outlier, but in a good way, if one considers ‘good’ as being lionized by the local community and being given an hour’s long public platform in which to discuss his work and the NFT associated with it. Glibly possessed of what one would call artspeak- you’ll excuse this term as it is a neologism Sewell actually employed- he could indeed talk a good game.  

But his art did not speak for itself. In this regard, I am not talking about an ostensible, apprehendable narrative content. What I mean is an absence of immanence, an animating principle that, in the viewing, stirs both soul and intellect. As Brian Sewell the critic and connoisseur would have it, nothing to see here.  

ArtNews is reporting today on uber gallery Hauser & Wirth’s new location in New York’s SoHo district. Of particular interest is that this was formerly, some 20 years ago, an outpost of Gagosian, who then decamped to trendier, albeit only a stone’s throw away, Chelsea. Interesting, and mystifying, at least for someone as me who can’t fathom the need for, what is it?- five locations or is it more? that Gagosian maintains in Manhattan. Hauser & Wirth, with this new outpost, maintains but a paltry three.

The dynamics of the contemporary trade perennially surprise me. Mind, it has largely taken over the traditional trade in the largest art market cities, certainly when it comes to the better- and perhaps I mean better promoted- living artists. My hats off however, to any gallerist who takes a chance on any studio work, but then, no gallerist I know has any direct financial commitment to an artist save payment when a work is sold, minus, of course, the typical commission of 40%.

That sounds a lot, but of course, overhead, most notably occupancy costs in the better venues can drain liquidity as quickly as flushing drains the tank of a toilet. And, too, clients at the highest end, the likes of Douglas Cramer and Eli Broad, are rather few and far between. Finally, one must be aware the predations of the auction houses, themselves well represented in the best art market cities, and the go-to for contemporary art. Of course, Basquiat became a name more than a Warhol Factory refugee while in Gagosian’s stable, but became, posthumously, a superstar because of Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

None of this answers my opening query, why it is the likes of Hauser & Wirth need so many locations so near one another. From time to time I feel the need for a doppio espresso macchiato and am glad to find a Caffe Nero near at hand. I’ve not felt such a necessity when it comes to purchasing any artwork. I don’t consider such a purchase an impulse buy and always wonder, in the venues they occupy, whether galleries are particularly mindful of being accessible to passing trade. Of course, traditionally venues have been important. They functioned in former ages to actually stimulate passing trade, bringing punters to the venue allowing convenience to visit one, then another, then another of the galleries huddled close together. Is that a working model in these days of the virtual shop? I shouldn’t think so, with shopping for even the most abstruse of objects now displaced by the virtual venue. Even popups like the better fairs and their ubiquitous galas and vernissages often functioning solely as a glam night out.

Perhaps it is that very many of the venues are populated with the better, and not so better, second and third (and fourth and fifth) rank independent galleries that are so necessary to those galleries of multiple locations. While a principal of the major international galleries might claim their stable of artists is collected, or should I say curated, from those whose works capture an ineluctable zeitgeist, or are possessed of an ineffable anima mundus, that’s only art speak. Scouting lesser exhibitions, the possession of the traditional red dot on the tombstone is the driver, and the more of them and the quicker the red dots populate, the more likely the artist’s next exhibition will be within the vaunted space of an uber gallery.

But where uber galleries sometimes garner uber collectors, some of that uber money leaks into capitalizing additional gallery spaces. In my former life as a banker, the two ventures one never loaned startup capital to were restaurants and, wait for it, art galleries. The sexiness of investing in an art gallery, while bankers, insufficiently libidinous so in consequence immune to such blandishments, nevertheless continues to find investor appeal. Hauser & Wirth must have sexiness in abundance, as they’ve also expanded into restaurants, including one nearby their new location SoHo location.

My hat is doffed in the direction of the Antiques Trade Gazette. Their reporting on the spate of dealer disbursals recently has included rationalizing phrases like ‘downsizing’, ‘don’t want to work so hard’, and ‘change of focus.’ What is never said, and presumably never voiced by the ‘downsizing’ dealers are phrases like ‘tired of throwing good money after bad’, or the simpler ‘ran out of cash.’ Perhaps not achieving the pinnacle of journalistic impact but thank heavens ATG has as it has always done put the best face possible on the trade, accentuating the positive, and making less of its, shall we say, vicissitudes.

This all sounds cynical and indeed it is. I’d call myself a nostalgic cynic, if both can coexist without one sounding barmy. A cynic about the state of the trade, but my nostalgia is not for anything so venal as the cash flow our business formerly spun off. I love the retail trade and it was a joy to go into our Jackson Square gallery, every day of the week. Mind, our open hours were weekdays and Saturdays, but Sunday was a catchup day, reviewing auction catalogues and entering any manner of stock purchases in the inventory program we still employ.

Things change, and our gallery traffic slowed to a trickle. While initially buoyed by trade through our website and enhanced by promotion of items on social media, fate took a hand, with our surviving parents becoming old and infirm all at once, necessitating a move to our benighted home town to look after them. We still were possessed of a few shekels saved from the good trading years but I opine that, had we not been otherwise called upon to do our duty to the old folks, we too might, at our disbursal, be employing, as noted above, face savingly euphemistic phrases.

But it’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow someone some luck, as indeed it has for the sale rooms. I note that one of my favourite local rooms, Dreweatt’s in Berkshire is tagged to offer the stock of the redoubtable dealers Windsor House, Piet Jonker, and King’s Road fixture Guinevere. ‘Favourite’ but I can’t say I’ve ever snagged a bargain at Dreweatt’s. A darling of the county set and within a stone’s throw of London, this particular auction house gets plenty of traction from city types who seek to accoutre their country cottages, or, while at the weekend, take in a view at Dreweatt’s and find something with which to enhance their overlarge homes in Kensington, Notting Hill, or such like neighbourhoods with the post code prefixes of ‘W’ or ‘SW’.

In taking a quick look at Dreweatt’s recent financial results, no question, its owner the art consultancy Gurr Johns must be feeling very sunny about things. Sunny enough, clearly, that it has been announced it would revive the revered name Mallett, the century and a half old dealer that during its tenure traded at the topmost tier of the trade in antiques, as a working entity. Long moribund and its name and such goodwill as survived was acquired by Gurr Johns as largely a throw-in as part of the assets associated with their purchase of Dreweatt’s. According to reporting, the new Mallett will work from Gurr John’s Pall Mall location, but not as a retail dealer as in former times, but as a consultancy with a focus on the decorative arts and, their words, ‘heritage collections’. Although not splashing out on inventory, Gurr Johns has made a high-profile commitment to the project, putting in Rufus Bird as director. A prominent name himself in the field of decorative arts, Bird has been not entirely settled since separating from the Royal Collections Trust in 2021.

Although pleased at the prospect of the revival of Mallett, if I’m honest that pleasure is heavily coloured with wistfulness, remembering the Mallett of the good old days, and witnessing in real time its anguished death throes, with the sale of its stock, abandonment of its retail spaces in London and New York, the company’s involvement in a tax fraud scandal. Shall I go on?

But at the end of the day, Mallett’s revival does nothing to ameliorate the decline of the retail trade, and ‘consultancy’ adds nothing but aridity. The ‘juicy’ part of the trade, and that in which successful dealers gloried, was the acquisition of fine quality material, using an intellect and an eye developed over many years, and glorying in the possession of gear of this sort handsomely deployed in the dealer’s own premises. I’ve often said that one of my few sadnesses whilst engaged in the retail sphere was when a piece sold quickly, denying me the chance to enjoy its loveliness. ‘Consulting’, as we do from time to time, involves sourcing material that never comes into our own possession, while collecting a commission from the client who employs us. Frankly, I’d call consultancy love at second best. There is, I’ll admit, a sensual aspect to maintaining one’s own stock, and carrying on metaphorically, consulting is rather like relying on shall we say porn when one would really rather indulge in the real thing. Arid, and not juicy. And for those scopophiles amongst my gentle readers, you’ll not I hope take offense but I’d submit that looking but not owning is scopophilia. Certainly at the least thwarted desire.

So, there we have it. The trade thinned out almost to the point of invisibility with the recent disbursal sales at auction. And Mallett’s ‘revival’, a revival of the crypto variety, as it will exist only as a consultancy. Mallett, then, now becomes an emblem of what the trade has become. And an emblem of the sad and ironic varieties. The vaunted king of the retail trade is now fashioned into something that provides for those of us who survive a wistful look backward into its and the trade’s glorious past.

So my gentle readers know, I am not generally given to hyperbole. Although excitable by nature, I nevertheless try to rein this in. If I don’t, I am always several steps ahead of an inexorably unfolding reality that, usually, results in that reality not being as unfavourable as I had thought it might be. Hyperbole, excitement, and pessimism- that’s me, sorry to say, and facets of my personal makeup I am constantly warring against.

All the above seems not of a piece with my title, but I have to say, events from yesterday make it hard to characterize the present state of the antiques trade any other way. Sick and getting sicker, my conversation with one of the antiques experts at a London saleroom made all this all the more clear when he said he wasn’t sure how long they would continue to offer period furniture. This, after the same saleroom had winnowed out its support staff barely two years ago and reducing the auctions from nearly every week to only occasionally. Now, it appears, the main guys are down to three- three who are, not surprising, wondering about their, shall we say, long term prospects.

Mind you, the saleroom preview was fairly well attended and when I remarked on this, the chap pointed out the visiting demography. They were all people like me, of a certain age- by which I mean ‘old’- and as chatty as they were amongst themselves and saleroom staff, gave every impression of people enjoying an afternoon out. It was, as it happens, fairly sunny and, for London in early February, warm.

I suppose I feel this all the more just at the moment because the last week or so has been a cascade of bad news for the trade. Masterpiece London cancelled, the Summer Olympia Fair cancelled, one of the newer online platforms 2Covet in liquidation. All this conjoined with the current round of sales liquidated the stock of one of the few remaining dealers in New York, Hyde Park Antiques, makes one imagine that the trade, formerly just bobbing up and down for air, is now well and truly disappearing beneath the waves.

On Saturday, I had morning coffee with one of my near neighbours in Notting Hill, who remarked how a small hotel that had Georgian furniture in its rooms, during a recent refit, put the now unfashionable brown furniture out in the forecourt for any passers-by to help themselves. My neighbour did so, but he’s not all that young either, and he remarked how as he was helping himself to a pretty good late 18th century press cupboard, very many young householders just walked past with absolutely no expression of interest.

Certainly the same could be said of my saleroom experience yesterday. Here it is, bonus time, with all the City types flush with more money than they can spend on meals out and flash cars and expensive holidays- and not a one poking around for a bargain piece of Georgian furniture with which to accoutre their homes. And bargains there were- a Gillows dining table for £1,000 low estimate, and speaking of Gillows, a magnificent writing table that was akin to the one within the library of the fictional Downton Abbey for not very much more. Tragically, this wonderful piece of Regency period gear had been purchased by someone in the trade from a West County saleroom only a few years ago. But alas, the trade buyer couldn’t shift it, so here it is, being dumped as it were back onto the auction market.

Nothing cheery about the compendium of recent news regarding the trade in English antiques. It has occurred to me often in recent days how tempting it is to acquire excellent stock for, as of now, very little money and then re-enter as a retail vendor the trade I so enjoy. That cogitation makes me, at variance with my pessimistic metier, smile happily at the prospect. I don’t have to imagine however how my partner Keith McCullar would respond- he’d think I had lost my mind. Fortunately for us both, Keith has the keys to the chequebook.

Some of my gentle readers will already be aware that this fall I am carrying my own arts career forward by advanced study at the Warburg Institute. Charitably offering me a place following a 20-year hiatus, a return is something I greatly look forward to. Coincidentally, the Warburg and its redoubtable director Dr William Sherman offered an online course this last week on Renaissance code and cipher, which course I was pleased to join. All this sounds forbidding and abstruse, but I must say, Professor Sherman made it anything but and I’m sure every attendee enjoyed it, which enjoyment made easy an understanding of the subject matter.

With all that, I was put in mind of another man of redoubtable character, Sir Ernst Gombrich, whose book The Story of Art made him, arguably, the most famous director in the Warburg’s history. Redoubtable, but as I was reminded when I watched on YouTube a 1995 interview he gave to Charlie Rose, modest but frank, and I was, as one tends to be when someone great repeats an opinion held by oneself, cheered when Gombrich said his favorite museums were small ones. Large collections, if I remember rightly, Sir Ernst said gave him indigestion.

As indeed they sometimes do me, too. Mind you, the National Gallery is impressive beyond description for the totality of its holdings, but the effect is too often that totality minimizes very many of the works on show and lionizes others. I cannot think very many people, were they to consider the matter, would think Reynold’s blustery portrait of Banastre Tarleton on a par with Jan van Eyck’s exquisite Arnolfini Marriage. But I suppose that’s the point I’m making- that they are under the same roof renders them, prima facie, of equivalent merit.

Years ago, I taught several sections of art history and a student asked a question I’ve often heard over the years, to the effect of what it was that made any artistic opus one of museum quality. My answer was then as it is now- because it’s in a museum. Glib and circular, but of course, someone, or a collection of someones, and not God, made the decision to acquire an artwork for an institution based on some manner of criteria that may, or may not, have made sense at the time the decision was taken. Whoever thinks these criteria are something sacred, rigidly permanent, and immutable needs to see the vast numbers of works currently being deaccessioned to know that is not the case. The current rather euphemistic phrase museums are fond of employing is rationalizing their collections.

I am reminded of a construct Gombrich developed many years ago in Art and Illusion, what he termed cultural schemata. What people see and what they think they see may be quite different things. A big public gallery designed in a classical idiom- and this applies to a similarly large and similarly styled stately home- and a gothic cathedral are all powerful signifiers of immense importance which must perforce apply to any cultural artifacts- including paintings and sculpture- contained within. As I had once heard it said of Antony Blunt, his exhortation to his students was ‘Just look at the pictures.’ Hard to do when one is overawed by the setting, and in Gombrich’s case, given indigestion.

What I less elegantly call the big house effect is still very much an activating force in the world of art. Although the number of museum attendees has rather dwindled in the last decade- COVID aside- people still expect to see works by familiar names they consider, if only because their work is in an edifice as grand as a museum, as masters. But living artists of all stripes and levels of ability seek validation through a mention on their own CV’s that their work is held by various permanent collections. In my own brief sojourn into the museum world, I think of the almost daily receipt of some manner of work an artist sought to give to the contemporary art museum at which I was then employed. Admittedly, my appointment was a temporary one that lasted only a few months, but even so, I cannot now remember a single work that was accepted into the museum’s permanent collection or- and perhaps this is more telling- the names of any of the artists who proffered their work.

A museum’s rationalizing its collections is also given to mean a significant move toward inclusivity, selling off older works and acquiring those newer that at last acknowledge artistic production within cultures and ethnicities that until recently have been little considered. Laudable, and an acknowledgment, as well, of galleries’ changing constituencies. But works on show don’t immediately become canonical, and it must be remembered that museum attendees, again a nod toward Gombrich, wish to see what they think they ought to see. Will the big house effect continue to contribute an importance to new works, and fast track them into the canon? I hope it will, but it remains to be seen.