TEFAF 2001 Presents Quality Work, Feels Black Monday's Impact

Art Business News, May, 2001 by Paul Michaud

MAASTRICHT, Germany--From its start in 1988, TEFAF, which stands for The European Fine Arts Fair, has always been synonymous with quality. Seasoned show attendees and exhibitors say there are few mediocre works here. Indeed, if TEFAF attracts buyers from most of the major international institutions, leading U.S. galleries and collections, it is in large part because it has gathered a reputation for presenting the best of the best.

"We happen to be the paradise for art collectors," said TEFAF spokeswoman, Maya Rumpf. This year, for its 14th edition, TEFAF certainly lived up to its reputation. It managed to attract a record 25,000 visitors for its opening weekend in March. These numbers were so high, some say, because TEFAF's selection committee came up with close to 200 international galleries--from 13 countries--of a more qualitative overall calibre than present at most of the other European art fairs.

And, as TEFAF requires participants to expose exclusively works which it defines as "of museum quality," this year saw some extraordinary presentations. Much remarked were some of the galleries taking part in the section devoted to "art of the 20th century," notably Acquavella Galleries of New York, which came up with some of the best work of Pierre Bonnard, Picasso, Kandinsky, Sisley, Seurat and Cezanne. Works by the two latter artists sold briskly, with a drawing by Seurat going for $800,000, while a watercolor by Cezanne easily fetched $1.35 million.

Among the major acquirers of works were such leading institutions as the Louvre, which put up $600,000 to acquire Michel Corneille's "La Preuve," offered by Dover Street Gallery of London. Centre Georges Pompidou at Beaubourg spent 3 million Swiss Francs ($1.8 million) to acquire a 1918 work, "Composition X," by Theo van Doesburg, sold by Miklos von Bartha of Basel.

Not ones to rest on their laurels, TEFAF officials decided once again to re-think the way the chefs d'oeuvres put on offer by participants were presented. Tom Postma, a Dutch architect and sculptor charged with giving TEFAF 2001 a "new look," designed this year's fair in such a way that it appeared to be a huge jewelry box. "It's not unusual that we came up with this idea," said Postma, "as this year we have some extraordinary jewels on offer."

The atmosphere created by Postma was both elegant and timeless, modern but also classic. Attendees and exhibitors said he created the perfect kind of harmony in which the most contemporary works can be presented alongside the star jewel of this year's fair: Rembrandt's "Portrait of a 62-Year-Old Woman," which was on offer at 25 million [pounds sterling] ($4 million).

Black Monday Makes Its Mark

Still, this year's TEFAF proved quite morose, hardly the fault of the fair's organizers who, as usual, went out of their way to outdo previous fairs. It just happened that after a very promising start, the third day of TEFAF 2001 coincided with Black Monday, March 12--the day the Nasdaq dropped by close to 7 percent, and the Dow Jones fell by more than 4 points.

Suddenly buyers proved rarer, and those who remained proved understandably more selective in what they were willing to buy. Whereas many galleries managed on the first day of TEFAF to easily find buyers willing to spend as much as $3 and $4 million for a work of art, the average value of subsequent sales fell under $500,000. Richard Nagy of London, a specialist in German expressionism seemed disappointed that he'd not been able to sell more of the 28 quality works by Egon Schiele than finally were acquired. Many works, among them the most touted, found no buyers at all. It is a trend which, in the eyes of participants, is expected to continue and become more pronounced at the major international art fairs that will soon open at Geneva (Salon de Mars) and Berlin (the Biennale). What began as a promising season, notably last fall with FIAC in Paris and continuing with ARCO in late winter in Madrid, seems suddenly to have come to a halt with TEFAF.

More than ever, it would seem, the success or failure of the art market appears inexorably linked with the situation of the world's major financial markets, notably Wall Street. Luckily for the collector though, one thing that has not lessened is the quality of the works on offer--a trait once again very evident at TEFAF.