THE RECENT AUTOBIOGRAPHY of the famed modern-day art seller, Simon de Pury (The Auctioneer, 2016), is filled with many entertaining episodes. But perhaps his recounting of the "art auction wars" of the 1950s and 1960s is the most fascinating.
Here, we can find the mix of aristocracy, American emergence, the Beatles, anti-Semitism, spying for the Soviet Union, and closet homosexuality—not to mention oodles of wealth and getting your name in the New York Times for buying an expensive painting.
The story begins in England, home to the Anglo world's historic art auction houses, notably Sotheby's—where De Pury made his name—and Christie’s. The English felt they had a corner on sophisticated art collecting, though a few upstart efforts were being made in postwar America, notably the American Art Association and later Parke-Bernet.
Against all resistance, the British houses managed to arrive in America, where New York was a new center of art commerce, and begin to take over the entire scene. Today, art auction houses are international beasts, with little to do with borders, but back then—the 1950s—the sun rose out of London (and a few European concerns in Switzerland, Germany, Greece, and Italy),
De Pury tells the inside story. To start with, he explains the true reasons that some art styles, such as Impressionism and Post-Impression, took the modern world by storm several generations after the artists lived and died. Paintings by Monet, Van Gough, Cezanne and others, he says, “Became the investment vehicle of choice for high rollers.”
These storehouses of “modern” paintings, already bought up in droves for low prices, were amply cataloged, unlike older “traditional” paintings, which always had difficult provenances (past histories). Moreover, old master's paintings already had a rampant history of forgery, and so those that were "discovered," or available, were a risky investment.
So for wealthy investors, De Pury says, "A Van Gough was a sure thing." Thus, in the postwar period, Impressionists and Post-Impressionists made front page headlines. Not from art critics, but in reports from auction houses of record-breaking sales. (In those days, record breaking was in the $10-$15,000 range).
Next come the auction house personalities. Towering over Sotheby's was its chief auctioneer, Peter Wilson, tall and born into a family with a baronage. This typified the kind of world, and clientele that was associated with high-end art, furniture, and ceramic collecting.
Wilson not only revolutionized the art auction, using all forms of anticipation-building and celebrity-linking, he was a mysterious figure himself. Once married, he divorced, since he was a closet homosexual. According to De Pury, quite a few of the top art agents and customers were of a similar inclination, a kind of bonhomie network that boosted European business.
Meanwhile, Wilson was rumored to be the "fifth man" in the celebrated British spy ring—with four culprits—most Sir Anthony Blunt, a former keeper of the Queen’s art collection. When fellow homosexual Blunt was exposed in 1979 as a Soviet spy, Wilson suddenly disappeared (to France), prompting speculation that he was the “fifth man” in the Eton-Cambridge-Oxford spy ring.
Wilson’s tax lawyer says he fled to avoid pending taxes. Wilson himself later said of the innuendo: “It doesn’t really make sense.” In other words, why would a communist sympathizer be in the capitalist art business?
Even as the Cold War hung over politics, the new wealth of the postwar machine brought art collecting to a new high. The turning point, it is told, came in 1958, with Sotheby's "auction of the century.” It drew the likes of Paul Mellon and other uber-rich, and the ring master, Wilson, recalled that he "never sold so much so fast." It was a record sale of $2.8 million that lasted only 22 minutes. And it made Sotheby's new-era reputation.
Then came the Beatles. Before then, a wall of resistance stood between the American upper class and the British aristocracy. Arguably, nothing broke down this barrier more than the revolution in music, characterized by the Beatles and other British innovators. As De Pury says, “The music invasion paved the way for the art invasion."
The other popular breakthrough, lowering the snob barrier between the British and Americans, was Hollywood. Kirk Douglas played Van Gough in the movie Lust for Life (1956) with Anthony Quinn playing Gaugin. Then, both became art collectors and showed up at art auctions.
Sotheby's, by De Pury’s account, would be first to break both the cross-Atlantic barrier and the ethnicity barriers in the art world. To the extent that there was anti-Semitism in upper class England, it slowed the access of many Jewish art dealers into that sphere. Sotheby’s put that aside, in various public episodes, and began to work with Jewish dealers in New York.
This was a prelude to the decision to try to take a stake in the New York's art market, where American tycoons still felt the Brits were a bit smug for their tastes. The day came, in 1964, when Sotheby's beat out Christies in acquiring the leading auction house in New York, Parke-Bernet (1937-1964), and established what would become an international concern. The rest is history.
And De Pury played his part. Born in Switzerland to a well-connected family, Baron De Pury began his young his apprenticeship with Swiss dealers in Expressionists such as Kandinsky and Chagall. He gained further training in London and, at entry level, got a job at Sotheby’s. Peter Wilson became his mentor and De Pury's rise matched that of the global art market.
He became head of Sotheby's Europe, and later broke away to form a third firm, the eponymous Simon de Pury, to rival the Big Two (Sotheby's and Christie’s). He was late in age, and it did not work out, following the ups and downs of a tumultuous economy. Still, De Pury, once called the "Mick Jagger of the art world," lives up to that entertaining status in his almost tell-all book.
His world, in fact, anticipated the globally popular Antique Road Show, on which he eventually became a star.