Art & Finance Newsletter #22 - A Dealer in Deep Water
Thank you to the folks that made it out to the China Now event in London last Tuesday.
We had a great turn out for the drinks reception that evening as well. The Head UK representative from Tencent joined for cocktails, as well in attendance were chief representatives from several Asia based banks.
The feedback from the delegates has been excellent and we are already making plans for a continuation of the China Now initiative this spring in Shanghai and this fall in Hong Kong.
I'll keep you posted!
On to the art market...
London art dealer sued by US tycoon over Old Master purchases
The London dealer Richard Green is being sued by a client who claims that information about some of the provenance of two Old Master paintings was “withheld”, leading him to pay too much.
Gary Klesch, an Anglo-American entrepreneur and investor, bought the two works of art at Tefaf Maastricht last year. He paid €3m for River Landscape with Fishers and a Cart (around 1600-1610) by Jan Brueghel the Elder, and €2m for Winter Landscape with Figures Skating and Sleigh-Riding Outside a Town, with the Utrecht Dom and Huis Groenwoude at Right, (165(8?)) by Salomon van Ruysdael.
But now Klesch has filed a claim in the London High Court, saying that the Ruysdael had been sold for $882,500 at Sotheby’s New York in June 2017, and that the Breughel was sold by Lempertz Cologne in November 2017 for €1.45m. The claim says that Richard Green Fine Paintings had not given this information and that had Klesch known of it, he would not have paid the prices he did.
Asked about the specific question of provenance, the gallery's director Jonathan Green said: “Where we bought the works is not relevant; as for any retailer we don’t have to reveal our sources."
The Art Newspaper - London art dealer sued by US Tycoon
Famed New York art dealer sentenced
After pleading guilty in September to filing false tax returns that claimed she had taken in millions of dollars less than was the reality, Mary Boone—an art dealer with roots in New York’s 1970s-era SoHo scene and galleries in the present in Midtown and Chelsea—was sentenced on Thursday to 30 months in prison in New York’s Southern District Court. She was granted up to one year of supervised release, and once her sentence is completed, she has to serve 180 hours of community service. The sentence falls six months short of the three-year maximum sought by the U.S. attorney’s office.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who presided over the sentencing, said that Boone was eligible for up to one year of her sentence to be served under supervised release. He said that her community service hours must be served through the New York Department of Education, through which she would help facilitate programs devoted to visual arts education for children. The judge said he expected Boone, who must surrender herself on or before May 15, to be in prison until 2021, with the prospect of additional time served outside of jail after.
In a statement, Geoffrey S. Berman, the Manhattan U.S. attorney, said, “As Manhattan art gallery owner Mary Boone has admitted, her personal tax returns were more a work of impressionism than realism. Seemingly in order from afar, the picture Boone painted of her profits, losses, and expenses was, upon closer inspection, a palette of lies and misrepresentations mixed together to avoid paying over $3 million in taxes.”
Artnews - Famed New York art dealer sentenced
Will your children share your love of art?
Some wealthy families have a secret when it comes to their art collection: The adult children don't share their parents' tastes. In fact, many like the monetary value of their parents' collections more than the objects themselves.
Planning can help keep collectors' passions alive, even if their children have no desire to pursue them. According to a new UBS Investor Watch Pulse: Art in motion—released in December to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach—58% of art collectors are worried their heirs won't know how to care for their collection.
That's why many collectors today are now having conversations about other ways of creating a legacy with their collections, including working alongside public museums and even starting private museums, as part of the planning process.
UBS - Will your children share your love of art?
Art & Collectibles for asset protection purposes
One of the common themes in the various conversations I had with delegates and attendees at the China Now event - how to use art & collectibles for asset protection purposes?
Interestingly I've been receiving more and more inquiries for this need from the client side here in Asia.
Let me know what you are seeing out there!
Speak soon,
Blake