Author: Michael Chappell

Not so long ago, we were asked by the stepdaughter of a well-known antiques dealer who’d recently died to assist her with marketing his huge inventory. That he was not a member of the accredited trade was certainly made manifest when we looked through countless items to only find a few that we could reasonably offer. Nevertheless, after sifting through hundreds we found perhaps two dozen that were of sufficient quality that would then articulate with our stock. That of course was the first challenge, because the dealer had paid a huge amount of money even for the most pedestrian pieces. We had the unpleasant task of negotiating with the stepdaughter, trying to break the bad news of what the items were actually worth, and then making her understand that that figure had to be discounted yet again to allow Chappell & McCullar to make a bit of money on the sale. I freely admit that we endeavor to operate profitably.

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished, and with the items finally negotiated and installed in our gallery and then catalogued and photographed and offered for sale, the stepdaughter phoned us sometimes daily wondering what we sold and if not why we hadn’t- and in an historical reinvention, ‘reminded’ us that she’d done us a signal honor in allowing us to represent her stepfather’s stock. Ugh. We did sell a few pieces, but after a little while- perhaps 6 months- told her to come and pick up her items. We did though have one piece that had had significant interest, but the interested party told us, not as though we didn’t know, that the piece was overpriced, and he gave us a figure- a reasonable one- he was willing to pay. We dutifully communicated this to the stepdaughter only to be met with a haughty decline, and this piece, then, also made its way, unsold, back to its point of origin. Within weeks, we saw this same piece in an auction catalog, with a presale estimate below what we’d offered to pay, and when the piece did sell at auction, it sold even yet below that- at an estimated net to the stepdaughter of 50% of what we had offered a few weeks previously.

One wonders what mental process was at play when upon hearing the auction estimate, prevented the stepdaughter from phoning us to reoffer the piece. Rank stupidity? Well, yes, certainly in this instance but frankly, this same behavior exhibited so often by seasoned dealers who should know better has begged question over and over during our time in the trade. To cite two instances occurring just this week, we received first a communication from a now struggling dealer asking for our help that, when it was offered by us not so long ago, was haughtily spurned. A bit of an aside, although we could clearly read between the lines to suss out the dealer’s straights, the tone was nevertheless couched in phrases that made it seem that in asking for assistance, Chappell & McCullar was being done a favor. It was, further, the gallery manager who contacted us. As we typically would, as the saying goes, rather speak to the organ grinder than the monkey, we responded by saying we would happily discuss these few matters with the gallery owner.

This recent dealer missive comes on top of reading a few days ago in the trade press of yet another dealer who likewise chose not to do business with us, and now closing up entirely after trading for nearly a century. As I reread this last sentence, I find that what I’ve written though concise is misleading. I should say more explicitly, and more germane to the present discussion, that the dealer made our enquiry about their stock and the possible completion of a sales transaction so complicated that it made it seem as though they chose not to trade with us. We will though have an easier time, I’ll wager, when their stock comes up at auction.

Maybe it’s something Keith McCullar and I are doing or not, perhaps sporting the wrong hairstyles or inappropriate attire- couldn’t be poor personal hygiene- but I suspect that what we are doing wrong is what we’re doing right- carrying on our long established practice of contacting people in the trade when we see something another dealer has that we don’t, that we can then sell on to one of our clients. We do that often, including just this week, sourcing an unusual item not typically in our stock for a very good client in the southeast. That he came to us is not out of pattern as he has done so many times over the years, providing items from our own stock as well as sourcing pieces from others, and even on one occasion arranging to have an upholstery fabric specially loomed in Italy.

The ‘why’ of why the client came to us is simple- clients return because the trade is a relationship business, with the client buying not just an object from a dealer, but also buying into the dealer’s manner, cachet and mystique- all these things rendering a look and feel that, for the best dealers, is as uniquely theirs as a fingerprint. We do of course see folks from time to time who we know to be inveterate collectors that never make a purchase but do routinely from others with whom, it is apparent, they are simpatico. And of course, our own good clients do not make purchases exclusively from us- no one, and certainly not us, can claim either a monopoly on relationships or exclusive loyalty.

None of this client dynamic is unusual and I cannot believe that the nature of these semi exclusive relationships has not been cottoned on to by every dealer in the accredited trade. Nevertheless, it astonishes me how obtuse my colleagues seem to be about this phenomenon. Not so long ago, we had a sometime client contact us- a fund manager in Hong Kong, who was seeking a long set of Regency period dining chairs. As it happened, we found a good set at a neighboring gallery, and sold them on to our client. We got some stick from the dealer though when we inquired about another item for a different client, with the dealer’s retort that he was not willing to sell the piece to us, as he’d save the sales opportunity for himself the next time the prospective client was in his shop. What a putz- I guess his comments to us amounted to an egotistical occlusion, unwilling as he was to acknowledge that the client doubtless had already been in, given the dealer the go-by and chose to trade with Chappell & McCullar. I must say, particularly in our old Jackson Square location, this kind of thing happened to us over and over. One neighbor dealer when we would come in to look at something for a client, as we did with some frequency, took to insisting that we tell him for whom we were making the purchase. The upshot of both these stories is, both of these are now shall we say former dealers.

In a trade where collegiality would serve everyone, particularly in tough times, it still astonishes me the extent to which dealers will continue to resist cooperating with those who they insist on considering not as colleagues but as competitors. When the dealer attrition first began apace in our old neighborhood, I brought up my concern about losing what I considered a critical mass of dealers in the area, a massing that would facilitate the area’s and each individual dealer’s success, and historically a massing that had established it initially as a shopping venue, and a massing which would secure its survival. The dealer to whom I expressed this concern upbraided me, telling me that I was stupid, that with the departure of any dealer, what sales he was enjoying would now flow to those of us who remained. This mindset functioned so successfully in his business that he, too, is now a former dealer.

It would be ridiculous of me to claim that the vicissitudes of the trade in art and antiques haven’t been affected by changes in the environment in which business is done. Online sales have had the same effect on the trade as on every other bricks and mortar retailing, rendering them nearly obsolete. Dealer platforms, functioning as they do to present a wide variety of material on a single page provide a

shopper with a virtual antiques and art fair, and have rung the death knell for the actual live see-it-and-touch-it antiques and art fair. And too consuming patterns have changed with a younger generation, with the opportunity to have cheap and cheerful furnishing and decorative items, available any time and on a budget- and with free shipping. Vintage items with some but not much age and hardly antique, also available through specialized online platforms, now are used to add interest to modern décor, displacing better quality period material.

Even so, and with so much Chappell & McCullar business conducted through our website, we’ve found that our own specific look remains transcendent, not just keeping our existing client relationships intact, but providing inroads into new ones. Any why not? We still use the same amount of care in the acquisition of our pieces, and as I hope my gentle readers have discerned through your dedicated reading of my blog posts, we still communicate with our clients and the world at large in the same voice.

And, as just cited, we still have clients that require something that isn’t strictly in our line. And we yet enquire about pieces to satisfy a clients’ requirements, shopping our colleagues in the accredited trade first. We don’t experience the same shall we say resistance as we did a few years ago when we shop, but then, there are markedly fewer dealers.

But it still exists- with a driving attitude I’ve now termed pernicious egotism. Take note, my colleagues who read this- whatever we have, we’re happy to offer it to you for sale- just ask me. But that won’t happen, or at least it has rarely happened in the past. The point of all that I’ve written in this entry is that, with all the difficulties in trading conditions, and those conditions continue to decline without any sign of abating, egotism exacerbates tough times. I’ve twice characterized specific dealer attitudes as haughty in this blog- would preplacing haughtiness with pleasant congeniality change things? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but it wouldn’t hurt. What I can point to based on our experiences just this week is that pernicious egotism will it sadly appears, survive as long as the trade survives.

We’re in the process of making some changes to our website and social media platforms, as we have to do in this day and age to not just appear au courant but out of necessity to stay in front of our present and (hopefully) future clients. My gentle readers will have divined that this very blog you so enjoy (hopefully I say again) functions as well as new website content when we post it to allow our site to stay well positioned on the search engines.

We are then mindful of our online image and our online competition, and I have to say, and as we all know, online our buyers are spoiled for choice. Period material, yes- but also kind- of- looks- like- but- isn’t period- Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Wayfair- all function to siphon something away from our online sales. Not directly comparable merchandise you say? And for our discerning reader, you would be exactly right.

But that’s the problem- when viewed online, it is sometimes a challenge to distinguish the differences that our more seasoned customers might think obvious. What is obvious to all, however, is price point, and it is the price point buyer who is victimized.

Yes, victimized and in very many ways.

Kate Wagner whose blog ‘McMansion Hell’ details all this in a recent post entitled ‘The budget furniture dilemma’ cites instances including the latest Wayfair fiasco when it was discovered the company was selling items for use by a government contractor for the controversial housing of children of undocumented migrants. Over 500 Wayfair employees walked out when this was discovered, and Wayfair’s response was to donate $100,000 to the Red Cross.

Kate’s point, though, is that not just Wayfair but very nearly all similar companies are engaged in practices that are, as she characterizes them in understatement ‘ethically questionable.’ She cites, for instance, Ikea’s union busting tactics in the US and Canada, and Target’s use of third-party firms who hire undocumented workers. And, perhaps most frightening of all, Ikea’s use of a huge proportion of the world’s trees for the production of furniture that will shortly after purchase be thrown away.

And that’s a lot of it- thrown away. We have over the years met with prospective buyers who wanted the ‘now’ look, by which was meant a complete roomful, if not a houseful, of furniture and decorative objects. So much of what’s available online caters to that very want- and at an ostensibly cheap price. ‘Cheap’, of course, in the acquisition, and easy, too, in the buying, as a suite of furniture can be had for something less than $2,500- but had at the cost of exploiting laborers and denuding the planet of the vegetation required to cleanse itself- and keep us alive.

It is ironic how, in this day and age of considerable voice about the fate of the planet, so many of those with much of their future ahead of them are placing that future most in jeopardy. It is those younger folk who are starting out their independent existence furnishing for example the first marital home with newly made throwaway junk bought online. But then, it is so often those selfsame X and Z gen types who increase urban pollution by crowding our streets with patronage of rideshare services and encourage the spoliation of residential neighborhoods by staying in often illegally offered vacation shares.

But then, all of these goods and services are offered online exclusively, and it is the facility with which they are offered and the ease in comparing prices that function as the hook. Price point shopping is made quick and easy with a click, and the speed at which this can be accomplished relieves any obligation to think about the manifold (negative) ramifications that are concomitant with that click.

In an example of synchronicity and interconnectedness, I’ve just received an email missive from my friend Dan Conner who several times a week supplies me with insightful and uplifting anecdotes. Today’s ended with the moral tagline ‘The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.’ With the modern penchant for price point only purchases, those exemplary trees will offer no shade at all ever, cut down to make throwaway furniture. ‘Price point ugly’ indeed.

In September, Christie’s will hold an online sale of works by illusive artist Banksy. The sale title itself is presumably drawn from the artist, and completely titled ‘I can’t believe you Morons actually buy this sh*t.’ The asterisk of course inserted by Christies, although I can’t think why.

The work may be by Banksy, or may not be, or may be the production of a number of people, crypto artists, who work collectively under the name of Banksy- all of which possibilities are of appropriate Banksy-an fashion. In a tradition of street art that goes back millennia including more recently the likes of Jean Michel Basquiat, Banksy functions to redefine the nature of artistic production, and changes established notions of what should be included in the artistic canon.

Or not. Frankly, as the title of the auction suggests, Banksy is laughing at the effect he’s having on the world of collecting, and while he laughs, for myself, I’m mystified. But then, the 20^th century has been nothing if not replete with the work of those whose artistic production was not understood but yet lionized the result of promotion by both the critical and commercial art sales community.

Those of us in the collecting world, and that includes Keith McCullar and me, inveterate collectors who maintain a presence in the retail trade largely to support our collecting activities, have been laughed at before. Picasso was self descriptively quoted in arts journalist Giovanni Papini’s 1951 Il Libro Nero as ‘only a joker who had understood his epoch and has extracted all he possibly could from the stupidity, greed and vanity of his contemporaries.’ Rather an insulting indictment of those whose support made Picasso one of the overarching cultural figures of the 20^th century. This statement was published a few years after the death of his uber patron Gertrude Stein. Would he have made this statement were she still living and dared risk being put in place and diminished by her withering riposte?

Although there is some dispute about Papini, with claims including by Picasso that the quote was fudged up, there are nevertheless manifold examples of works by artists of similar vintage who sought to point up the idiocy of humanity when it came to art, which idiocy was concretely enshrined by the elevation into the canon of shall we say ‘controversial’ works. One of my favourite examples, and the one I always brought my students to see at Tate Modern, was Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 ‘Fountain’, the upturned urinal that is the quintessence of Dada. Even 100 years on, my students, despite having read a considerable amount of art criticism beforehand yet found it nearly impossible to come to terms with the object. My students’ confusion and consternation give witness to the fact that, had they more self-confidence, they’d know they were on to something- but placement in a museum of size and reputation as Tate Modern cowed them, intimidating them into thinking ‘Fountain’ was something beyond what it was. Pride of place in an art museum works to flimflam most people into thinking that something must prima facie be respected as of museum quality.

My students were overthinking what it was they saw, when actually the pathway to a site of meaning was simple to navigate- if the artist says it’s an art object, it is. And if museum curators along with the rest of us are stupid or gullible enough to esteem it as one and can create some kind of critical framework in support, well, what can I say? In my academic career reading art history, I would frequently come across the trope generally referred to as the emperor’s new clothes. We all remember the nursery story, of the gullible emperor, duped by the tailor who told him that his fine albeit imaginary raiment could only be seen by those as wise, virtuous and discerning as the emperor himself. It then took the honest, guileless questioning of a child when the emperor sought to display himself that when the obvious was pointed out publicly, all admitted that in fact the emperor was entirely naked.

As often as the trope of the emperor’s new clothes is referred to in art history, it is very, very seldom employed. Most generally, it is the commercial, collecting and even the scholarly community who lionizes work that even the artist himself thinks is at best trivial, or downright no good. Or, as Banksy has it, sans asterisk, shit for morons to buy.

In the last round of Democratic debates, Mayor Pete was asked about a racial incident involving a police shooting. Mayor Pete owned it, acknowledging that it was a black mark on the city he governs, and likewise acknowledging that the police force while making progress has a long way to go before it is sufficiently diverse to match the community it serves.

Frankly, the candor, humility, and intelligence that Mayor Pete has shown consistently has gained him considerable traction, witness his appearance on the debate stage- adjacent, tellingly, to the veteran Joe Biden. And Joe could take a lesson from Mayor Pete.

It must be said that Joe’s longevity and success in the public arena, and the personal enjoyment and good humor he almost always exhibits, reminds me no end of another successful Democratic politician of not so long ago, Hubert Humphrey, whose soubriquet was the happy warrior. With all that, Joe Biden’s length of service has a dark side, which Kamala Harris sought to exploit in the debate. This country’s emergence from separate- but- not- equal, Jim Crow legislation is ongoing and not done yet, but was certainly nearer the beginning than it is now when Senator Harris was a schoolgirl. Her criticism of Biden’s past actions while legitimate is along the lines of 20-20 hindsight. In Biden’s early career, he had to deal with a block of legislators that we’ve now nearly forgotten, southern Democrats whose longevity in office made them senior on nearly every committee in the house and senate and successfully obstructionist beyond anything we currently see in Congress. It was this environment that Joe had to navigate to accomplish any progressive reform. That some of these were achieved with compromises made with arch Dixiecrat James Eastland should not in any way be interpreted as Joe’s wholesale embrace of Eastland and Eastland’s racist agenda.

Keith McCullar and I have just embarked on the beginning of the 40th year of our relationship. Yes- 4-0. But it is only in the last 5 years we’ve enjoyed the entitlements that come with the legal recognition others enjoy, and the tax and social security benefits that we’ve paid for but heretofore had no right to receive. For Keith and me, we should have a large picture of Joe Biden in pride of place in our home- with a halo above it- as it was he who as vice president publicly moved the support for marriage equality to the executive branch of government. In terms of Joe Biden hagiography, I believe Mayor Pete would agree, and like us, would further agree that Biden’s progressive creds are eternally established.

In an aside in the debate, while Mayor Pete concluded his mea culpa about the racial incident in South Bend, debater Eric Swalwell said aloud that Mayor Pete could have fired the chief of police. It is ironic that Swalwell, whose ageist refrain during the debate, and before and afterwards, was how the older leaders of the party needed to step aside for those, like him, who are younger, he advocated the oldest of old political ploys- find someone to blame. Without any specific knowledge of what had gone on in South Bend, Swalwell’s ‘solution’- and one often favored by President Trump- was to find a fall guy and dispatch them publicly.

With all that, there is no question that so much of what was done not so very long ago moved racial equality forward in this country with glacial slowness and Kamala Harris’ comments are, excuse my understatement, well taken. But the fact is, Biden did the best he could with what he had to work with, and it is hardly fair and entirely unproductive to second guess events 4 decades hence. Mistakes were made, but the tortured, circuitous course of history can’t be rewritten, but perhaps its sting can be, well- ameliorated. Just take a lesson from Mayor Pete-own it, Joe, and acknowledge that we’ve yet a long way to go. But also be quick to point out that Kamala Harris- and Mayor Pete and Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro- are, in no small part due to your redoubtable efforts and decades of public service, now sharing the public stage with you.

It has for years been my sad refrain- the traditional trade, not just in traditional material but its traditions of marketing through bricks and mortar locations in proximity to like dealers and likewise amongst like dealers in the best fairs- that these ways in which to connect with clients new and established were quickly going the way of the dodo bird. For Chappell & McCullar, stalwarts in late years on Jackson Street in San Francisco and innumerable fairs in the US and the UK, we’ve been sadly witness to the death of very many fairs of decades-long tenure, and the complete disappearance of venerable Jackson Square as a venue for fine art and antiques.

And the replacement, I hardly need tell you, is the virtual storefront- even during our waning years on Jackson Square, the lion’s share of our sales were online, and nowadays, virtually all are derived from our virtual presence. We log as diligently our online statistics as we ever did the names, details, and preferences of those visitors who we were pleased to have darken our Jackson Square threshold. A sidebar, though- it shouldn’t surprise me that the business has headed the direction it has. While it has always seemed to me that, though we treat our stock as a fungible commodity- with established criteria for value and quality- clients would forever in the future wish to see, touch and in every way examine at first hand what we had to offer. With all that, from the very first, our gallery visitors always when asked told us that precedent to their visit, they had browsed our website.

So I shouldn’t be surprised that after very many years, the virtual has displaced the actual, and perhaps what I express as surprise is more than slightly inauthentic. What I really am is nostalgic for the old, high touch interaction between object and client and dealer.

I suppose my gentle readers might link the traditional material that is our stock in trade with my fondness for the traditional methods of selling it, but these traditional methods pervade all manner, including the edgiest of contemporary art. One only has to read the art press for a few weeks to discover the vicissitudes experienced by the contemporary art fairs, including the most recent Art Basel. While so many marques- Masterpiece, TEFAF, and Art Basel- continue to try to reinvent themselves to attract buyers, ‘The Canvas’ is reporting something at Art Basel that is astonishing. Contemporary dealer stalwart David Zwirner actually had an online viewing room at his stand offering what the dealer termed a ‘parallel art fair experience.’ Or, put another way, letting a fox into the art fair henhouse. Clearly, Zwirner knew what they were doing, selling items online at the fair into the 7 figures.

Mind you, Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, and Gagosian are deep pocketed heavy hitters in the contemporary market, and though for the moment they are committed to not just fairs, but also bricks and mortar in addition to the virtual ‘parallel art fair experience.’ Still, an attachment to traditional methods was fatal to Partridge and Mallett on Bond Street and Kentshire in New York- for decades the most overarching presences within my sphere and now only of blessed memory.