Opinion: Sotheby’s highlights economic disparity

LONDON, U.K. — For a few days last week the best art museum in the world was to be found on London’s Bond Street. Sotheby’s auction house was holding a winter sale of impressionists and modern art and the items being sold were very choice indeed.

Viewing week at Sotheby’s and its rival Christie’s is one of the rare occasions when plutocracy gives way to democracy. Anyone can go in and look at the works, many of which have been out of view in private collections for decades. After they are sold they disappear again.

For an impoverished culture vulture the items in this auction made a visit to Sotheby’s compulsory. Gustav Klimt’s "Church in Cassone — Landscape with Cypresses" had not been seen in decades. Once the property of Klimt’s patrons in fin-de-siecle Vienna, the Zuckerkandl’s, the painting had been looted from the Jewish family by the Nazis before being acquired after the war by the family of the man selling it.

Church in Cassone, a truly beautiful picture, was as luscious as any of Klimts paintings of women but here the predominant color was green. The trees in the painting glowed with mid-summer luster.

One of the other big ticket items, Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture "Walking Man," is one of the iconographic art works of the 20th century.

Both of these pieces had guide prices of £12 to £15 million, between $19 and $23.5 million. The question for plutocrat and democrat art lovers was whether the art market was mired in the same slow emergence from recession as most other businesses. The question was answered early in the evening when the six-foot-tall Giacometti came up for sale.

From the beginning it was clear the Giacometti was going to go for a big price. The bidding opened at £9 million, around $14 million, the next bid was £12 million. When the £50 million mark was reached there was a group gasp in the room and when auctioneer Henry Wyndham said "last chance, fair warning, sold for 58 million pounds" and brought the hammer down there was was loud round of cheers and applause. Add in the buyer’s premium and the final price was £65 million, around $104.3 million, a world record for a work of art bought at auction.

The Klimt went for an all in price of £26.9 million, $43.2 million. By the end of the evening Sotheby’s had sold $235.6 million worth of paintings, drawing and sculptures, a world record for a single auction.

What the sale underscored was that there are two economies operating in the world. There is the one where unemployment is rising despite economies growing again, where giving to universities is down 12 percent and where museums cannot acquire world class art any more. Then there is the other one where billionaires buy statues for 100 million bucks.

And it’s not just London’s art auctions that demonstrate the fact. After a contraction following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, property in London has more than held its own over the last 18 months despite predictions to the contrary. Bankers bonuses have returned to pre-crash levels despite loud squealings from the government and the imposition of a special tax on them.

All that money has to go somewhere and luxury items are what the plutocrats buy. Not everything at Sotheby’s cost $40 or 60 million. You could pick up a top class Picasso or Matisse drawing for under a million. There were several beautiful paintings by less fashionable impressionists that went for the the half million mark — a mid-level Goldman Sachs investment banker with a love of art could happily dispose of his annual bonus and still have enough change for a decent dinner out.

At Sotheby’s the other thing plutocrats buy is complete and utter discretion. No one knows who purchased the Giacometti or Klimt. Both pieces will disappear except for the occasional loan to a museum holding a major retrospective. In today’s world, democracy must give way to plutocracy, when it comes to art.