YEAR IN REVIEW 1996: ART-ANTIQUES-AND-COLLECTIBLES

ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS Steady but not spectacular performance defined the 1995 market for antiquarian books. With books and manuscripts having less accessibility to a broad market, their prices remained relatively stable, with fewer of the wrenching price movements seen in other collecting areas. Still, big names inspired big prices in 1995 as new buyers interested in acquiring the works of famous authors entered the market in increasing numbers. Previously active collectors, who had curbed their buying in the early 1990s while recovering from personal financial reversals, were beginning to buy once more. Money seemed readily available for top-quality lots, but a plethora of other material kept prices down for less-than-great items. Christie's auction house reported a number of notable sales. Among them was the sale of George Washington's personal copy of the Acts of the First Congress (sessions 1-3), containing copies of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Treaty of Paris, and other legislative acts. It sold for an impressive $310,500. At the same sale, a second Madrid edition of Don Quixote was purchased for $85,000, nearly triple the estimated selling price, and a three-volume first edition of Herman Melville's The Whale (later titled Moby Dick) fetched $74,000. In April Winston Churchill's pre-1945 papers were sold by his family to the British government for 12.5 million in spite of protests that the writings already were the property of the government. Part of the purchase price was provided by an American philanthropist. A late 15th-century French translation of Giovanni Boccaccio's important De casibus virorum illustrium was bought for $200,500, just short of the low estimate. During the summer the auction giant Sotheby's conducted in London the second in a series of sales from the Otto Schafer collection. The lot, called "the most important collection of books assembled in Europe since the second World War," sold for $4.5 million. In another important single-owner sale, Sotheby's offered the 500-volume library of the 5th Earl of Rosebery, prime minister of England from 1894 to 1895. The London sale, estimated at $1.7 million, realized $2.4 million. The library of Sir Karl Popper, noted philosopher of science, was sold to the Republic of Austria and the state of Krnten (Carinthia) in a private sale negotiated by Sotheby's. The collection contained Popper's annotated copies of his own work, letters to him from Albert Einstein, and antiquarian books. An early printing of Clement Moore's Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas, which was expected to bring $800 to $1,200, sold at Sotheby's for an astounding $29,900. Some felt that the sale of Moore's original manuscript for $255,500 just six months prior prompted the high price. Market observers speculated that continuing economic improvement and successful public sales were fueling a new interest in books and manuscripts as collectibles. Some, fearing a duplication of the market swings that had afflicted certain art markets, considered the prospect a mixed blessing. (JOHN HANLON) ART AUCTIONS AND SALES The recovery from a five-year market slump finally arrived in 1995. In 1990 art prices, in response to a worldwide recession and an overheated, speculative market, had dropped precipitously and remained at low levels. Although spotty evidence of a comeback could be seen in some collecting areas as early as mid-1994, sales were relatively lacklustre for most of that year. Even so, many market observers predicted an imminent recovery based on improving economic conditions and a growing demand for high-quality works of art. During the spring and summer of 1995, a series of unusually successful public sales pointed, at last, to a substantial recovery. A cooperating economy drew collectors back into the market at a time when an abundance of fresh, high-priced pictures was emerging. The Impressionist and modern art market consistently strengthened, fueled by some of the most exciting and important offerings in years. In May, Sotheby's and Christie's, major international auction houses, each offered important single-owner sales. The extraordinarily fine collection of Donald and Jean Stralem at Sotheby's and the estate of Ralph and Georgia Colin at Christie's tempted collectors with rare opportunities that they enthusiastically embraced. The Stralems' major Picasso portrait "Angel Fernandez de Soto," from his Blue Period, brought a startling $29.2 million, well above the expected $10 million-$20 million, placing it among the 10 most expensive paintings ever sold at auction. At the same sale, Matisse's "La Pose hindoue" provoked intense bidding and resulted in a $14.9 million sale, a new record for the painter. From the Colin estate, Modigliani's superb seated nude, "Nu assis au collier," reached $12.4 million, a record price for the artist. At another spring sale at Christie's, a portrait by van Gogh, "Jeune Homme la casquette," commanded $13.2 million, well above the $7 million-$9 million estimate. It was the first portrait by van Gogh auctioned since Christie's sold "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" for $82.5 million in 1990. When the Neoclassical Picasso "Mre et enfant" of Pamela Harriman, the U.S. ambassador to France, brought $11.9 million (a sum considerably higher than an unpublished estimate of $7 million-$10 million), some viewed the sale as a gauge of market strength. Monet's "La Cathdrale de Rouen: effet d'aprs-midi," unseen publicly since 1924 and, by all accounts, a stunning example of his work, went to a collector for $12.1 million at a Christie's London sale in June. Art of the 19th century, which had been spared the worst ravages of the market slump in 1990, continued a steady upward spiral that, according to some, had begun as early as 1992. Romantic pictures that were executed with technical perfection continued to find enthusiastic buyers willing to pay good prices. Sotheby's May sale of 19th-century paintings fetched a respectable $18.7 million, but its specialty sale, La Belle Epoque, was not as successful. Price records were set for a large number of artists, however, and the top works sold well. James Tissot's "Le Printemps" brought $1.1 million, and a portrait by Jules Bastien-Lepage of Sarah Bernhardt went to an American buyer for $706,500. Christie's sold a late work by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, "The Finding of Moses." Although somewhat atypical of the artist's best work, it found a buyer for $2.8 million. Tissot's appealing portrait of his mistress, Kathleen Newton, created considerable interest and sold for $2.5 million. Beginning in late 1994 and continuing into 1995, both dealers and buyers cheerfully noted the sudden influx of high-quality American paintings. Buyers, who had been anticipating the moment that the market would change, responded with high bids. "A sudden match of supply and demand," quipped one New York dealer. Realists applauded the number of exceptional works while recognizing that the cache of such stellar art would continue to dwindle. Sotheby's also sold a number of works that had been part of the IBM collection. Frank Weston Benson's "The Sisters," a charming portrait of the artist's two daughters playing beside a lake, commanded a stunning $4.2 million. An unusually fine George Bellows, "Easter Snow (Easter Sunday)," brought $2.8 million, and "Diamond Shoal," the last dated watercolour by Winslow Homer, fetched a record $1.8 million. Christie's, whose sales of American pictures increased by 37% in 1995, sold Frederick Frieseke's "Garden in June" for $937,500, much higher than the estimate of $350,000-$450,000. Contemporary art, which, along with Impressionism, was hardest hit by the 1990 decline in art sales, showed a less spectacular recovery. Nonetheless, many considered the market strong but complained about the scarcity of available great works; many of the high-priced stars of the 1980s were conspicuously absent. Sotheby's realized the highest price for a contemporary work when it sold Bacon's "Study for a Portrait of John Edwards" to a European collector for 1.2 million. It was the first painting to be sold in London for more than 1 million in almost five years. Other notable sales were Yves Klein's "IKB 103," which went for $369,000, considerably higher than the expected $127,000-$159,000, and Lucio Fontana's 1965 "Concetto spaziale attese," which brought $682,000. The market for fine prints echoed the one for paintings; top examples brought top dollar, while lesser works saw little increase over previous years. Notable sales included a large Maurice Prendergast monotype, "Figures in the Park," which was energetically bid up at Christie's to $244,500--more than double the presale estimate. The contemporary art of Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol also commanded good prices. British watercolours and drawings had remained strong relative to other markets during the previous five years. Sales of early British watercolours, generally considered the domain of connoisseurs, suffered from a dearth of quality in an area in which condition was critical. For rare and outstanding examples, buyers paid high prices. Sotheby's sale of Samuel Palmer's "A Cornfield, Shoreham at Twilight" fetched $256,490, double its presale estimate. Pleasant Victorian genre pictures continued to find a broader popular market. Early in the year, Old Master sales received a boost when Sotheby's sold the New-York Historical Society's impressive collection, and Christie's offered works from the collections of both Alice Tully and Rudolf Nureyev. Crowded sales rooms reflected an interest rarely seen in Old Master sales, and the bidding matched the excitement. The auspicious beginnings did not carry over to the spring sales, which failed to confirm a trend. At the end of a successful season (August 1994-July 1995), Sotheby's reported sales of $1,480,000,000, up 7% over the previous season. Christie's sold $1,410,000,000, an increase of 20%. The first half of 1995 was even more promising, with Sotheby's and Christie's reporting advances of 20% and 23%, respectively. Art dealers and others in the trade generally agreed that the nature of the art market was considerably different from that of the high-flying 1980s. The "autograph collectors" and investment speculators had left the market, buyer confidence had returned to a preslump level, and a more sophisticated and selective market had emerged. (JOHN HANLON) ART EXHIBITIONS By 1995 the digital chip and CD-ROM--technologies not usually associated with art exhibitions--were promising to usurp the role of audio headsets in prerecorded tours and to provide innovative features that could change the way museums and works of art were perceived. Since 1993 a number of art museums and galleries had offered handheld "wands" that allowed visitors to listen to commentaries about various displays or to access interactive computer stations to receive additional information at random and in greater or less detail, as desired. These and other developing technologies inevitably ignited a debate whether the technology was being used as an educational tool or seen as an end in itself. Though some feared that the technology could distract from the objects on view, to others the new horizons opened by technology promised exciting developments. In New York City the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum mounted a retrospective of German artist Georg Baselitz that demonstrated some new possibilities. Many of the show's 100 paintings were labeled with codes that matched recordings by various commentators, including observations by the artist. Visitors could rent a "soundtrack," a telephone-like wand, and selectively listen to these comments by entering the appropriate code. A diverse group of museum patrons with different tastes, backgrounds, or interests could gain differing, and perhaps more appropriate, appreciations of Baselitz' figurative paintings and inverted canvases. Permanent museum and gallery collections were making use of new technology as well. The National Gallery in London offered for rental a portable CD-ROM player with recorded comments on works in the permanent collection. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., opened a Micro Gallery, which featured computer terminals with touch screens. Visitors could access information about the museum's collection (organized by subject, period, artist, or geography) and make use of sound, pictures, and text. After the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., developed a "virtual museum" on the Internet, larger numbers of patrons were able to "visit" by using home-based computer technology. Art created on computers was a popular subject of discussion. Though such art appeared mostly in private galleries rather than in public museums, the tide was shifting as new opportunities offered by digital technology intrigued artists, curators, and visitors. The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London held a series of shows and talks devoted to computer art entitled "Access All Areas: Visions of the Future." In September at the Serpentine Gallery in London, an exhibition entitled "The Maybe" offered fuel for the perennial debate "What is art?" Enormous publicity brought more than 20,000 people in one week to the show, which featured possessions of famous personalities from the past and a Sleeping Beauty-like display. Artist Cornelia Parker and actress Tilda Swinton collaborated on the exhibit, which showcased Swinton lying in repose in a glass box for eight hours per day. This display attracted far more attention than such inanimate objects as a 50-year-old cigar that had belonged to Winston Churchill, a quill pen that had been used by Charles Dickens, or ice skates that had been owned by the late Duchess of Windsor. The show demonstrated how performance art--though lacking in paint, canvas, design, colour, or line--could stimulate emotional response as thoroughly as conventional visual art. But many asked nonetheless if it was art. Conventional shows proliferated, especially those devoted to the Impressionists and dealing with familiar themes. Paul Czanne was the subject of a comprehensive exhibition, the first large show of his work in 60 years, on view at the Grand Palais in Paris and then at the Tate Gallery in London. In 1996 the exhibit would travel to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The London show included nearly 100 of about 800 known paintings by Czanne as well as about 60 watercolours and drawings borrowed from public and private collections worldwide. Two of the three paintings from his "Bathers" series were on loan from the National Gallery in London and the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the third canvas, belonging to the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa., was not part of the exhibition. Although smaller shows mounted in the 1970s and '80s explored specific aspects of Czanne's work, this was the largest show to allow a full study of his influence, genius, and evolution as an artist. "Impressionism in Britain," an exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in London and later mounted in Dublin, included more than 200 works by 100 artists and covered works painted in Britain by visiting French artists and Impressionist paintings created by British artists. Such French artists as Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Camille and Lucien Pissarro were represented. Works by English painters influenced by Impressionism formed a less coherent stylistic group. The works of Wilson Steer and Laura Knight were featured, along with a section devoted to American painter James McNeill Whistler and his followers. An exhibition entitled "Landscapes of France: Impressionism and Its Rivals" was mounted at the Hayward Gallery in London and later traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The show illustrated styles ranging from the academic mode of the 1860s to the more abstract and colourful Pont-Aven school of the 1880s. Many of the works, which were on loan from French regional museums, showed the wide divergence between officially sanctioned art and that of the more avant garde. The Impressionists were represented by such artists as Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Monet, and eventually Czanne. A major Monet exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago was the most comprehensive retrospective ever held of the artist's work and drew record crowds to the museum during its stay (July 22-November 26). The assemblage included 161 masterpieces drawn from private and public collections around the globe. One of the lesser-known Impressionists, Gustave Caillebotte, was the subject of a retrospective at the Grand Palais, Paris, that was later shown at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition included a number of works from U.S. museums, including the 1877 "Paris Street: Rainy Day," owned by the Art Institute. An exhibition devoted to the work of Pierre-Auguste Renoir was seen in a number of Australian cities. The exhibit, which began in the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, in mid-1994, traveled to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne before closing in early 1995 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. The works, which included 51 paintings and one sculpture, were part of European and American collections and covered most of the major aspects of the artist's career. An Australian show comprising more than 150 works by Henri Matisse was on view at the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, and the National Gallery of Victoria. The exhibition, which was on loan, included items drawn from collections throughout the world. It was the first antipodean show devoted to Matisse. Whistler, who spent most of his life in England, was the subject of a comprehensive exhibition at the Tate late in 1994. The show, which encompassed the entire range of Whistler's life and work--drawings in several different mediums, paintings, and examples of decorative schemes--was also mounted at the Orsay Museum in Paris and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Whistler's famous portraits were well represented and familiar, but some of his later paintings, including some splendid examples of fireworks, were less well-known. One of these, "Nocturne in Black and Gold: The falling rocket," came under such harsh criticism by John Ruskin when it was first exhibited (1877) in London that Whistler filed and won a celebrated lawsuit for libel. "Whistler and Japan," an exhibition at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., focused on Whistler's works in the museum's own collections and the Japanese influence on his work during the 1860s and '70s. The Freer Gallery works--never loaned--were therefore not among the paintings represented in the large Whistler show. A number of interesting shows concentrated on manuscript illumination. Italian book illustration was the focus of an exhibition in London at the Royal Academy of Arts and later on view in New York City at the Pierpont Morgan Library. The show, entitled "The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illustration 1450-1550," included 137 superb examples covering such diverse themes as classical and humanist texts, liturgical and biblical manuscripts, and patrons of the Italian Renaissance. The show, which was organized by subject rather than chronologically, encompassed a very wide range of beautiful objects and covered a subject less well-known than other examples of Italian Renaissance painting. Some 100 items, including painted panels and manuscript illuminations, were included in the exhibition "Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Illuminated manuscripts were also displayed in a series of exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Calif. One show running in late winter and early spring featured animal mythology and included illustrations of fables and games. "The Art of Devotion" at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam comprised 44 works--paintings, prints, books, sculpture, and objects in gold and silver--some of which were borrowed from foreign collections. Most were made in monasteries to be used by monks for private devotion and were therefore relatively small. Most of the images and objects, which dated from 1300 to 1500, were portable, and a series of miniature prints could easily be carried within the pages of a book. Objects from the show were displayed in darkened rooms and illuminated in isolated cases that were lit in such a way that the contents seemed to float in space. An exhibition devoted to the 15th-century Flemish artist Hans Memling was enormously popular when it was shown in late 1994 in Bruges, Belgium. The show consisted of 88 paintings (nearly half were attributed to Memling) and a subsidiary exhibition comprising textiles, manuscripts, and goldwork from this period. Aside from Memling's works, there were copies of lost works and works by his predecessors, followers, and contemporaries. The Louvre, Paris, also held a show celebrating Memling's quincentenary, with an exhibition drawn from French museums and pieces loaned from Italian and Dutch collections. An exhibition focusing on 16th-century French drawings from the cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris was shown there and later at both the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The show featured glasswork, silver work, and examples of decorative architectural projects. Though the emphasis of the show was on the school of Fontainebleau, there were many works by little-known artists, including some exquisite miniatures. Architectural drawings also were well represented. An exhibition, "The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943-1968," at the Guggenheim Museum was devoted to Italian art after World War II. More than 1,000 items drawn from this seminal era of Italian art and covering an important period in Italian history included objects related to photography, crafts, fashion, and film. Parallels were drawn between the works of such filmmakers as Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio De Sica and images created in the other arts, including the designs of both Fiat, the Italian automobile manufacturer, and architect Gio Ponti. The exhibition also noted, through the work of such artists as Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana, the important influence of the Futurism movement, which emphasized the power of the machine and the restlessness of modern life in general. The show highlighted the inventive and sometimes experimental use in both painting and sculpture of such everyday material as industrial-waste products and wire mesh. The paintings and sculptures of the period, somewhat unusually, were probably less well-known, particularly outside Italy, than the designs and fashions. A notable aspect of the exhibition, which was also seen in Milan and Wolfsburg, Germany, was the way in which the duality of Italian modern art was expressed in its modern form, frequently relying on images from past artistic history, events, myths, or recollections. The main summer exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was devoted to the history of the Wedgwood factory and the English stoneware produced by Josiah Wedgwood and his colleagues. The show, "The Genius of Wedgwood," commemorated the 200th anniversary of his death and included important items on loan from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, notably dinner pieces from the Frog Service, which was made for Catherine the Great. It was only the second time (the other was in 1909) that the Frog Service had been shown in England since it was commissioned in 1773. The wares in the exhibition were limited to those produced by Wedgwood's factory before his death in 1795. The bicentenary of Wedgwood's death also was marked by an exhibition at the City Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, England. "Josiah Wedgwood: The Man and his Mark" featured 195 pieces of Wedgwood drawn from public and private collections as well as works by Wedgwood's competitors and contemporaries. In Melbourne, the National Gallery of Victoria displayed "Three Centuries of Wedgwood." The marking of 100 years of trade between Japan and Brazil was recognized in an exhibition at the Fuji Art Museum in Tokyo. The show consisted of a collection of paintings on loan from the Museum of Art in So Paolo, Brazil, and included works by El Greco, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, and Vincent van Gogh. In Ljubljana, Slovenia, a large show, which opened in three separate venues in May, gathered the important examples of Gothic art from 1250 to 1450. Paintings, sculptures, and manuscripts were shown in the National Art Gallery, the minor arts were housed in the National Museum, and conservation techniques and materials and architecture appeared at the Cekinov Grad. The show covered cultural links with Italy and northern Europe, social history, and patronage. At the Hermitage, "Hidden Treasures Revealed" showed 74 works, including ones by Picasso and Edgar Degas, that had been removed from Germany at the end of World War II and since hidden in the museum. ( See Sidebar.) (SANDRA MILLIKIN) COLLECTIBLES In 1995 buyers took new notice of 18th-century American and Victorian furniture, Tiffany lamps, arcade machines, rock-and-roll memorabilia, and art pottery. The Eddy Nicholson collection of 18th-century American furniture fetched record prices. The Philadelphia Chippendale piecrust tea table that sold for $1,045,000 in 1986 shattered that record, making $2,422,500. A Queen Anne carved and inlaid walnut dressing table, Portsmouth, N.H., 1735-60, went for $103,700, while a Federal carved mahogany settee attributed to Samuel McIntire, Salem, Mass., 1800-11, fetched $134,500. Some pieces did not match earlier sales prices, but the receipts for the total collection exceeded the original cost. Victorian furniture sold well. A six-piece Rococo Revival-style Belter parlour set, c. 1850, was auctioned for $134,750, and a Herter Brothers carved oak console, c. 1881, brought a record $288,500. Pieces by Thomas Molesworth, a 20th-century western-style furniture designer, brought high prices--$85,000 for a credenza, $51,750 for twin beds with cowboy trim, and $25,300 for a set of four open armchairs with carved Indian teepee motif. Prices for American art pottery also increased; a Weller Aurelian vase decorated with red and yellow roses, 1899, was auctioned for $36,300, while a Weller Eocean vase with chrysanthemums brought $20,900. Record prices for Rookwood included $4,510 for a set of 1933 bookends showing Union Terminal and $62,700 for a 1911 black iris vase. A four-colour Newcomb vase decorated by Lenore Nicholson brought $29,700, and a rare grand feu 10.5-in green, brown, and mahogany vase made in Los Angeles (c. 1910) $8,250. Rare beer stein prices shot up: a Mettlach stein, No. 2106, brought $5,500; a No. 2717 fetched $3,520; and a student character stein by Sarreguemines realized $5,390. Typical auction prices for majolica included $1,265 for a Holdcroft dolphin-footed lily bowl, $990 for a George Jones floral strawberry serving dish, $2,970 for a rope and fern cheese keeper, and $4,180 for a Minton four-tier oyster server. Prices continued to climb for art glass, Depression glass, cut glass, and better glassware of the 1930s-1960s by Fenton, Pairpoint, and Fry. A record $23,100 was set for an 18th-century American pitcher with gadrooned design, olive amber glass. Two paperweights set records; an American weight with a parrot on latticinio ground brought $34,500, while a French pear weight on red ground fetched $22,500. A Tiffany Favrile Virginia creeper lamp with glass beads (c. 1900) sold for $1,102,500. Sales of lamps with reverse painted shades included a Handel lamp with a domed shade showing ruins along the Nile River ($5,750) and a Pairpoint lamp with a shade depicting a jungle bird ($4,025). Interest in the baseball card market dropped, but older memorabilia, game-worn uniforms, and autographs sold for top prices. A 1952 Mickey Mantle Topps rookie card in mint condition sold for $24,150--less than half the 1992 price of $55,000. Prices rose for Mantle memorabilia after his death, however. (See OBITUARIES.) Interest appeared for 20th-century photographs by name photographers and for early historic daguerreotypes. A sixth plate daguerreotype of the interior of a dry goods store sold for a record $16,000. Vintage textiles and clothing were also popular--a 1940s Adrian evening dress of lavender and peach satin fetched $7,187, while a Rudi Gernreich "Kabuki" wool knit dress brought $4,370. Sales were brisk for 20th-century steel toys, including pieces by Buddy L, cars and trucks of all types, and farm toys. Hot Wheels, vehicles made only since 1968, sold for more than their original price as soon as they reached the market. A 1969 Volkswagen Beach Bomb with surfboards reportedly sold for $1,500. A windup motorcycle that was made during the 1930s by Tipp & Co. of Germany and featured Mickey and Minnie Mouse sold for a record $30,800. Record prices also were set for marbles. Miscellaneous sales included $22,000 for a Superman Action Comics premium ring dating from 1940, $112,500 (was paid in 1994) for a King Kong poster, $84,000 for the typewriter used to write the James Bond stories, $17,250 for an Uncle Sam grip tester from 1904, and a record $107,000 for a Beverly Machine Co. Standard Grip Testing Machine made about 1897. (RALPH AND TERRY KOVEL) See also Libraries and Museums; Performing Arts: Motion Pictures. This updates the articles coin; painting, history of; photography; sculpture, history of.