What’s been revealed about Dr Peter Higgs, longtime curator of Greek antiquities at the British Museum, while eye-poppingly brazen, shouldn’t, for those in the museum world, come as anything of a surprise.  

For those few of my gentle readers, and I know there are very few of you, who are unaware of this, most accredited museums of even the humblest stripe invariably have more objects given to their care than are ever at any one point out on display. Witness those items allegedly stolen by Peter Higgs, valuable though they might have been, they were, none of them, ever displayed and kept by the museum for study purposes, presumably handled by a very few scholars for purposes of academic research.

Or maybe not.

For most museums, their so-called back room contains a welter of objects, as my farmer father would have said, not good enough to keep but too good to throw away. When items are accepted into a museum’s permanent collection, it is very often at the whim of one or two people who may, or may not, accord with a museum’s accession policy. This further assumes such a policy exists, and often it does not. Further, a less than desirable gift might accompany something highly desirable and it is a rare donor that allows the museum to cherry pick- one must take either all or none, and the taking of the none might prove opprobrious to a donor otherwise highly esteemed by the museum.  

So the institution is between a rock and a hard spot, and in consequence, is in possession of very many more items that are of mediocre quality and do not therefore articulate with those a curator might deem worthy of public presentation. Mind, everything taken into the permanent collection of an accredited museum requires the preparation of a curatorial dossier, an accession file that documents at a minimum a description of the object, notes on its condition, details of how it was acquired, and, importantly, good photographic images. And, of course, an inventory number is assigned.  

Simple enough, yes? The problem is, certainly in the case of the British Museum, very many objects were acquired literally centuries ago, and some rudimentary curatorial dossier might have been prepared, but, no surprise, itself not looked at by anyone in decades. As in the case of the light-fingered Dr Higgs, save the sharp eye of a nameless researcher who saw one of the objects offered on eBay, no one might ever have known the object had been filched.  

One has to note that very many of the most prestigious museums are in locations where the cost of living is, by most measures, prohibitive. I think of one long tenured senior curator of my acquaintance in London, who, until recently, lived in a small basement flat in Hackney. But even that, with Hackney up and coming, proved too expensive but the death of a near relative resulted in a legacy, and, with much of the salt removed from his tears of mourning,  allowed him to stay put. I am hardly an apologist for the sticky fingers of museum personnel, but the financial exigencies of living in London, or Paris, or New York make the prospect of relieving their museum employer of a few unappreciated items more than a bit tempting.  

In the 2017 documentary ‘The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin’, Maupin defines himself as a writer who’s gay, and not a gay writer. Ostensibly an important distinction and an odd one to make, given how he’s lived his adult life as an out gay man, and his initial claim to fame, Tales of the City which ran to several volumes, was nearly iconoclastic in its depiction of gay characters, and serialized in The San Francisco Chronicle.

However, at the time, I understood what Maupin meant, that he sought not to be pigeonholed as a writer whose works of fiction could only extend to portrayals of gay characters. He sought, in what I think he considered somewhat polemical, to resist being marginalized by his sexuality.  

Well, okay, but it has been six years since I heard him make that statement, and for longer than that, I’ve been niggled by what a statement of that sort connotes, that in fact, queerness is solely an aspect of one’s makeup, not the totality of what makes one whole. But what’s implied, however, is that one’s being queer can be compartmentalized, which sounds awfully like some kind of cop out, a communication to the larger world that queerness is safe and not to be feared as queers can contain their queerness within them. 

Well, screw that. Indeed, my own sexuality is not the whole of who I am, but it is pervasive, and as concomitant in my being as my blue eyes. I suppose when I write it is not always about gay men, but it is always from the point of view of a gay man. How can it not be? And moreover, why should it not be?  

And that’s I suppose what troubles me about Maupin’s statement, that he shouldn’t be pigeonholed but in effect, his statement says he’s acquiesced in a broader societal effort to marginalize him.  

And as pervasive as my own sexuality is, is the effort to deflect it. Subtle though it might have been formerly, now into my eighth decade it is sadly surprising how often I encounter homophobia. The most frequent, when, in meetings, I find someone explaining something to me in excruciatingly simple terms, and when my response is to make my interlocutor aware that their effort is not only unnecessary but dismissive of my own intellect and experience, I will often encounter pushback that can result in an exchange that will become strident. The why of this I should long since have understood when, well over 60 years ago, a friend- indeed at the time my best friend- described the employment of an epicene man of our acquaintance as, quoting, ‘a fag job.’  

Indeed, that is how queer men are yet seen, with some manner of adle-brained, light-in- the- loafers trope still very much alive and operative, and so ingrained that, when someone such as me rails against it, it engenders either insistence, or dismissal. Homophobia? Indeed, and perhaps of the worst kind as the perpetrator, I’m sure, would be horrified to be branded a homophobe, so as a consequence would be unlikely to even consider the opprobrium of their mindset, much less to alter it. 

I can’t say that Keith McCullar and I are modern day embodiments of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, but we’re both socializing strike forces. Within the very first few minutes of conversation with a stranger, both of us make a point of making it quite clear that we’re gay. ‘Socialization’, I’ve always called it, an effort even if it is practiced on one benighted person at a time to make them aware, with me as a living exemplar, of the ubiquity of queerness. Mind, of course it is easier for Keith and me than for others. We’re men, and we’re white and I readily admit we’ve manifold fewer challenges than any woman or any person of colour. 

But we do it as it is what we can do if we don’t do anything else. I was almost going to write something about how whatever makes as much difference as one pebble on the beach, in the fulness of time, might make so-called safe spaces for the queer community redundant. Would that they didn’t have to but within the jollity of Gay Pride Month, the safe spaces- gay bars and clubs and any other manner of venue- exist not despite, but primarily because of, the yet pervasive homophobia we need to fight against . 

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.