Art Market Euphoria Is Wearing Off; Realism's Setting In After Stock Drop
NEW YORK -- A portrait of the art market after this week would probably contain a greater share of somber hues.</br></br>Art dealers and art collectors across the country say the wild swings in the stock market may damp some of the euphoria that has characterized the art market in recent years. A number of dealers report that buyers who had paintings on hold or who had planned to purchase paintings are calling to postpone or cancel the deals. And some art experts expect the stratospheric prices that some works have commanded will return to more realistic levels -- just as the important fall auction season is beginning.</br></br>"I think the speculative fever (in art-buying) will subside now," says Lewis Manilow, a Chicago real-estate investor and major art collector. "This (stock market crash) is a dash of realism, and the art world needs some realism, too. It can't be endless."</br></br>Adds W. Graham Arader III, a print dealer who owns galleries in seven cities: "The art boom is over. It just got too high and it's over." Mr. Arader says he did a brisk business in August, especially to "Forbes 400 people," but that even before the crash, less-affluent collectors had stopped buying. "We did seven antique shows in the past three weeks, and we couldn't sell a thing," he says. "That has me scared."</br></br>No one expects the art market to collapse in a heap: There is no Dow Jones average that lumps together Louis XIV furniture and Picasso paintings. "Blue chip" art works have historically held their value much better than lower quality pieces in a downturn, and the Van Gogh iris painting set for sale at Sotheby's on Nov. 11 is still expected to fetch about $30 million, the second-highest price ever for a painting. Sotheby's is the auction house unit of London-based Sotheby's Holdings Inc.