VASARI21 - Art Advisers Redux

By Ann Landi — Almost five years ago I published a post about art advisers, those hard-working middlemen and women who match up artists with corporate clients, budding collectors, or homeowners in the throes of renovation. Enough has changed since that time that the subject seemed worth revisiting. For one thing, more and more galleries may be facing extinction as the pandemic continues to take its toll. For another, the undiminished popularity of Instagram has made it easier for advisers and artists to seek out one another. (For the purposes of this discussion, please note that I am using “consultant” and “adviser” interchangeably.)

As with dealers, advisers may be very high end, like Allan Schwartzman and Kim Heirston, who typically find blue-chip art for blue-chip clients and hobnob in the Hamptons with the likes of Elle McPherson and Cindy Sherman. (But it’s not always smooth sailing, even at the top of the line: last week Rudy Giuliani’s art consultant filed suit against her client for more than $15,000 in unpaid bills.)

“There are consultants who work with narrowly defined periods of art,” says artist Peter Roux, who specializes in ethereal paintings that often combine billowing cloudscapes with abstract elements. “There are consultants who work only with pieces priced at more than $10,000. And there are people who are more than happy to work with emerging artists.”

Roux says he has “active relationships” with about seven or eight—“’active’ meaning I’ve done something over the past six years. I might not hear from a consultant for a while, and then suddenly she will get in touch about a project.”

Advisers on the East and West Coasts

One he’s worked with frequently is Francie Kelley of Paragone Gallery in Los Angeles, who has been in the business for more than 25 years (among her accomplishments is extensive work in Las Vegas during the heyday of its reinvention, when she “worked on almost every major hotel on the strip”). Kelley has represented emerging artists and has also sold works by established names, like Sam Francis, Alexander Calder, and Henry Moore, but her focus, she says, “has been mid-career people, particularly with residential projects.  I work mostly with local designers doing residential and hospitality.”

When she takes on a residential client, her first task is to “get a good sense of what a person is about in her home—are there kids, pets, what’s important to the family? Once I get a feel for somebody, I will put together a digital presentation. And then I might bring a truckload of art to the house, as many as 40 or 50 pieces.” All this, she notes, was pre-Covid-19.

Farther up the coast, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Caroline Scott Low of CSL Art Consulting works with both corporate and private but says her “passion is working on the personal perspective.” Like most advisers, she does her best to offer works on approval, so that “clients can experience the artworks in their home for a trial period. They can see how it looks in the different lighting throughout the day and night. Living with it for a time can really seal their love of a piece. If the work is from out of state or another country, I will Photoshop it on the wall, so they can visualize it in their home.”

Liz Garvey gave up a gallery in Chelsea, along with the substantial overhead, to work almost exclusively with a private clientele, and has covered many aspects of the business—from taking newbies around to art venues (“to give them the lay of the land”) to working with individuals looking to build collections to dealing in the secondary market. “I have people who are interested in art but don’t have a clue how the art world works,” she says. “They’re not familiar with the galleries, so my goal is to give them an education and to learn what they like and what they don’t. Other collectors are looking for very specific categories—women artists, for example.”

For both collector and artist, the relationships forged can offer a greater intimacy and informality. Brooke Molinaroli, for example, launched BAM Art with parties at her home in Westchester, representing local artists, but has since acquired a national and international roster of clients and artists. (One of her recent projects is a show called “HomeMADE,” an online benefit showcasing works by 12 contemporary artists and photographers made during lockdown, with 50 percent of the proceeds going to NYC Salt, a charity that works with underserved city kids.)

Typically, art advisers are paid a percentage of the retail value of a work by the artist or a gallery, but, says Low, ‘the pay structure can vary depending on scope and additional services (i.e., installation, framing, managing collections).” Garvey says her fee structure also varies: “Long-term clients may have me on retainer because they have significant collections that I manage and curate. Often with new clients, I get paid a trade commission from individual galleries. And there are other services—like customized tours of galleries—for which I charge by the hour or at a flat rate.”

How To Find an Art Adviser

It’s easy enough to Google consultants in your area. Look at their websites; see if you’d be a good fit with their stable of artists. “If there’s contact information, I will grab that email and add it to the roster of recipients for my newsletter,” says Roux. “Because of that, many advisers have ended up getting in touch.”

Others, like Francie Kelley, have found him through Instagram. What makes him findable, Roux says, is hashtags, which are a powerful but sometimes slippery search mechanism. “For example, I did a series of paintings based on a residency I had in Iceland a few years ago. I posted one of the paintings on Instagram and used the hashtag #Iceland. Then I noticed that people who weren’t necessarily following me who were Iceland based, including a travel company and an art gallery. That was a good example for me about how powerful hashtags can be. I’ve also used the hashtag #artconsultant, which I’m sure people have used to find me.”

“When I first started fiddling around with Instagram, I thought this could be a great place for me to connect with interior designers,” says Kelley. “I didn’t even think about artists. And instead it’s offered me a wealth of info on new resources over the past four years. I like Instagram as a source to discover people. I’ll be following one artist, and that leads to other artists.”

Most advisers have instructions on their websites on how to submit works for their consideration, and most promise to respond. Garvey invites people interested in an affiliation with her to submit work for the “Select” show she produces in tandem with Artsy.net (deadline for this year is September 30; you can find more details here).

You may not fit with a particular project or client immediately, but the rewards seem worth the wait. “The one thing I really like about consultants is that they don’t need to limit the number of artists they represent. You can be in the database and get earmarked for projects. I don’t have any limits to the number of consultants I can use. I’m limited only by how much work I can do and if I’m interested. Never has a consultant asked for an exclusive relationship.”

You’ll need to do some homework and trolling on Instagram, but at a time when the art market seems more uncertain than ever, the investment may be worth it.

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Ode to Art

It’s omnipresent and irrelevant

Subjective and objective

Timeless and fleeting

Limitless and ceasing

Appalling and superb

Poignant and indifferent

 

Timeless Beauty

Leonardo’s Mona Lisa

Kaholo’s Self Portrait

Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring

 

Pricey beyond their time

Modigliani’s Nu Couché

Picasso’s Women of Algiers

Basquiat’s Untitled

 

Shocking in their time

Velazquez’ Rokeby Venus

Caravaggio’s Sick Bacchus

Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe

 

Deeply moving in any time

Picasso’s Guernica

Michelangelo’s Pietà

Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights

 

Ahead of their time

Vincent van Gogh

El Greco

Paul Gauguin

 

Favored in their Time

Yayoi Kusama

Roy Lichtenstein

Salvador Dalí

 

Perceived as taking no time

Pollack’s One Number 31

Kelly’s Blue/Red-Orange

Francis’ Speck

 

I see you everywhere

You move me deeply

Or not at all

It can depend on my mood

Or on the day of the week

But without you

I never want to be

 

 

C. Greg Gummersall

C. Gregory Gummersall began his professional art career more than thirty five years ago primarily as a West Coast artist. In the 90s Gummersall returned to an 80 acre ranch near Durango, Colorado, which suits his needs for lots of quiet space in which to create art.

Influenced by artists such as John Corbett, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, and Richard Diebenkorn….. Gummersall’s paintings have an energetically gestural, spontaneous quality. His brushstrokes suggest symbols or signs whose meanings can be sensed but never fully grasped. They are reminiscent of adrenaline-filled quickly drawn graffiti. But unlike the temporary existence of most graffiti, Greg’s brushstrokes and use of collage build upon each other to create a sense of memory in the canvases; nothing is erased, and through the layers of paint, the history of his marks remain visible.

“The advance mystery of making aesthetic sense by working with the puzzled balancing’s, coherent compositions, complimentary colors, and surfaced layers into rhythmic shared things of beauty is the reward. My secondary application of ‘ground’ over ‘figure’ illustrates my unusual interest in balancing the spontaneity of ‘chaos’ with the need for ‘order’. It also utilizes the free form of expressionist seemingly random marks with the more minimal ordering via painting out the excess chaos that then forms a new ground. Rhythmic lines, as architectural elements, add to the gestalt.”

As an artist, with never ending creative challenges, he gets easily bored with repetition. In the Art Business,  where repetition sells,  Greg had concerns that the range of his different series styles might be viewed as “immature” or unfocused. His friend (and former museums director), Mr.Gerald Nordland, informed him of how greats like Picasso and Matisse also worked in many different style series changes. Coming from such a respected Arts Scholar, the advice was reassuring. His cycling back through the various series over the past 35+ years results in change, interest, and the needed growth of added variety.

“My primary objective is to add beauty and expanded awareness to the viewers of my art. Contrary to much of the Art World’s “Shock Art”, I hope that my art communicates on a higher plane and provides a sort of refuge in a troubled world.”

Gummersall’s art is in numerous private, corporate and public collections including the Fordham University Museum at Lincoln Center, Federal Reserve Bank Chicago, Palm Springs Art Museum, Deutsche Bank, Toyota, Tucson Museum of Art, ANA Sheraton Hotel in Osaka, Pacific Bank, BMW, Four Seasons, and many others. Greg was honored to be included in the 183rd National Academy Invitational Exhibition Of Contemporary American Art in New York.