The Mania of Art Auctions: Problems as Well as Profits (Published 1988)
- ️https://www.nytimes.com/by/grace-glueck
- ️Sat Nov 26 1988
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- Nov. 26, 1988
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The effects of the huge prices paid at this month's art auctions are reverberating through the art world. Where the sellers and the auction houses happily see profits, many dealers, curators, artists and collectors see problems.
As auction prices have soared, so has the frustration of museum officials, who are pushed out of the competition for works of art.
Gallery owners fear the deepening inroads made by the auction houses into the art business they once dominated.
Artists worry that while their work commands more money, price fever may be turning art into a commodity.
Collectors are seeing art auctions as more and more a sport for the very rich.
These reactions were evident as the New York auction sales held by Sotheby's and Christie's reached a peak in a marathon that ran from Nov. 9 through 16. Between the two houses, a total of 1,404 works of art were sold - a number at record prices - for a staggering total of $443 million.
''This mania almost smacks of the megadeal leveraged buyout craze,'' said Alan Seligson, a Long Island businessman who collects Impressionist and post-Impressionist art.