MAASTRICHT, The Netherlands — The 27th edition of TEFAF Maastricht, also known as The European Fine Art Fair, opened to V.I.P. guests on Thursday, with wares from 275 art and antiques dealers from around the globe on display.
Given that all the works on offer have been vetted by committees of experts versed in areas from antiquities to old master paintings — experts with absolute authority to reject any work — the fair bristles with authenticity. (It also produces an annual global art market report, rich in statistics and jaw-dropping numbers, such as the €47.4 billion global art trade figure for 2013.)
TEFAF is the longest art fair, running 12 days and testing the mettle of dealers used to less taxing three-day fairs. Just in case, there are roving first aid teams prowling the aisles for anyone in physical distress, another nod to the rather older crowd here, which showed considerable zest in quaffing platters of Dutch themed canapés and slender flutes of champagne.
“I enjoy this fair,” said James Mayor of London’s Mayor Gallery, “because people are real here and those who buy actually put the works on the walls. It’s a very different group of people who come here.”
Mayor has been exhibiting here for 21 years and explained that TEFAF, unlike other art fairs, is run by a dealer cooperative, “so there isn’t a middleman, trying to take it from all sides.”
With a number of important and longstanding exhibitors dropping out this year, such as Agnew’s, Richard Feigen Gallery, and Noortman Master Paintings, dealers scrambled for new positions along the wide aisles boasting purloined names evocative of wealth and privilege, such as Madison Avenue and Faubourg Saint Honore.
One of the new exhibitors this year, New York’s Paul Kasmin Gallery, debuted with a sophisticated mix of works from the LaLannes to Andy Warhol, presenting a kind of homage to the late dealer Alexander Iolas, who gave Warhol both his first and last show during his lifetime.
“I’ve been to TEFAF several times as a visitor,” said Kasmin, “and it’s completely different from any other art fair, so if I’m going to another European art fair, we’re trying it out here.”
Though TEFAF has a reputation as a slower selling fair, given its long run and more critical profile of buyers, there was some early action, notably at London/Milan/St. Moritz Robilant + Voena, where Agostino Bonalumi’s massive, shaped abstraction “Rosso,” from 1967, sold to a Swiss collector for around €1 million.
The same collector also snapped up the majestic yet edgy Enrico Castellani hanging directly across from the Bonalumi — that piece, “Superficie Bianca,” from 1965, sold in the region of the €1.8 million asking price.
“The client was afraid to lose them,” said partner Marco Voena, who made the deal on the telephone.
A third Italian post-war work, Paolo Scheggi’s intricately cut and combined canvas abstraction “Intersuperficie curva Bianca,” from 1966, also sold at approximately €230,000.
“We wanted a booth between the modern and old masters,” said Voena, who debuted at TEFAF back in 1997 and whose gallery also specializes in old master paintings, “and we hit it with the modern.”
At Galerie Odermatt-Vedovi, a stunning Alexander Calder hanging mobile in painted sheet metal and wire, “Black 2-2-6,” from 1965, sold to a European collector in the region of the $2.6 million asking price, and a petite Lucio Fontana ink on card drawing sold for around €50,000, according to dealer Paolo Vedovi, who said the Fontana “was going to a private plane.”
Next door at New York’s Van de Weghe Fine Art, the dealer sold Pablo Picasso’s gold framed “Tete couronnee,” from 1960, in black crayon on paper to a Belgian collector for approximately $485,000.
“I love this fair, because you meet clients here that don’t come to any other fairs,” said Christophe van de Weghe. He added: “It’s a very European fair, filled with noble families and old money.”
In the first hours of the viewing there were multiple opportunities to spend millions on a variety of art works, from a rare Vincent van Gogh painting from Montmartre, “Moulin de la Galette,” from 1887, once owned by the American industrialist Charles Engelhard at London’s Dickinson for an otherwise undisclosed “eight figure” price, to Francis Bacon’s brawny and lemon yellow background “Study for the human body” in oil and pastel, from 1986, at 78- by 58-inches for $25 million.
The wish list didn’t stop there as significant works popped up at a willy-nilly rate, including a superb and undoubtedly rare Franz Marc at Munich’s Galerie Thomas, “The Fear of the Hare,” from 1912, a turbo-charged work mixed with figurative and abstract elements, starring a large spotted dog leaping superman style across a verdant landscape.
“It has been in a private collection for years,” said Raymond Thomas of the €9.4 million Marc. “They are getting gold and once a year are selling this and that.”
“It’s not an everyday buy,” he pointed out.
Speaking of that, the fair also boasted “Janey Waney,” from 1969, a 25-foot high Alexander Calder stabile in red, yellow, and blue, standing as a soaring sentinel in the rose-filled entryway of the fair. The sculpture is understood to hail from an American collector and carries a quiet price point of $20 million.
At a somewhat lower price point altitude, London’s Richard Nagy Gallery was offering Christian Schad’s remarkable portrait of Viennese pianist Anna Gabbineta, from 1927 and set against an elevated view of Weimar era houses, for €2.2 million. The painting last sold at Christie’s London in June 2013 for £481,875.
“The painting has been recently cleaned,” said Richard Nagy, “and is back to almost its original state.”
TEFAF runs through March 23.
