4/22/2009

Park City Utah Auction Cancelled

Jay Hamburg of the Park City Record recently wrote an article on an art auction and the galleries of Park City, Utah. Park City is a popular ski community for the wealthy and home of the Sundance Film Festival.

Recently the non profit Kimball Art Center in Park City was to hold an auction of quality prints and lithographs. According to the article, the sale did not generate enough interest to proceed. The article is interesting as it gives the hope of the auction employees based upon previous experience in these types of sales versus the results, which in this case was the cancellation of the sale.

Hamburg writes inside the Kimball Art Center, the not-for-profit institution that puts on the annual summer art festival on Main Street and hosts a series of exhibits the rest of the year, a few people are hanging works by some of the seminal figures of 20th century art, the so-called modern masters. Pieces by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Joan MirĂ³ and Henri Matisse, among other giants, will be on display for a night.

A Las Vegas firm the next day will put the pieces -- 125 or so, with art from names like Andy Warhol also arriving at the Kimball -- up for auction. An auctioneer from the Snyderville Basin has been drafted for the evening. The Las Vegas firm, known as Modern Masters Auctions, has brought a box full of brightly colored auction catalogs to the Kimball, with numbers printed on the back of the catalogs to identify the bidders.

The recession, it seems, is of marginal concern as the auction approaches. The art sellers are confident, knowing that the market in Park City, buffeted by the wealth of vacation-home owners and well-heeled ski visitors, should remain solid amid the recession.

Hamburger continues There are crowds of people steps away from the Kimball, walking up and down Main Street. Inside, though, there is little action. An hour passes. People from Modern Masters, who are chatting among themselves, are the only people seated in the chairs set up for the auction.

A few interested people browse the works, and 13 people eventually sign the guest list, but there are not enough buyers to hold an auction. It is cancelled. The recession this night has cut deep into an industry that can customarily depend on the biggest names in art commanding prices in the five figures and up.

"We're totally baffled. Everywhere we go, we have people turn out," says Nim Vaswani, one of the art sellers.

Art isn't 'recession-proof'

The article also quotes Mike Moses of the Mei Moses Art Index (contributor to the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies, click HERE to order) as well as local gallery owners who state the market in Park City has been off, even during the busy winter and early spring seasons.

To read the full article, click HERE.

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