Today’s high-end art consultants do not have other jobs. They are fulltime advocates for art who separate wheat from chaff by wearing many hats: market analyst, dealmaker, historian, appraiser, registrar, estate manager, conservator, soothsayer.
Among the whispered pleasures of life in Palm Beach are its private collections of art. Some inspire envy; others cause embarrassment. Often, the difference between captivating and cringe is not so much the money spent, but the benefit of good advice—and the willingness to take it.
History is rife with shining examples. Lorenzo de Medici partly earned the sobriquet “Magnificent” by heeding the counsel of Domenico Ghirlandaio and Andrea del Verrocchio to champion their students, Michelangelo and Leonardo. Isabella Stewart Gardner cast the art historian Bernard Berenson as her Virgil, while Leo Stein played weathervane for his sister Gertrude by pointing her to Picasso. And Lillie P. Bliss, a founder of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, followed her artist friend Arthur B. Davies into the avant- garde to procure what became the core of MoMA’s collection. (Her bequest permitted the sale of her Degas painting to fund the 1939 purchase of Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Cost: $24,000.)
Today’s high-end art consultants do not have other jobs. They are full-time advocates for art who separate wheat from chaff by wearing many hats: market analyst, dealmaker, historian, appraiser, registrar, estate manager, conservator, soothsayer. “It’s a multifaceted, day-to-day experience,” attests Laura Paulson, a former global chairman of 20th-century art at Christie’s and the founding principal of an independent advisory under the Gagosian umbrella. Over the last 40 years, following her start as a gallery receptionist, Paulson has played a consequential role in the growth and maintenance of storied collections across the country and in Europe, overseeing loans, landing coveted artworks, riding herd on auctions, and masterminding major gifts to museums.
These days she works alone, digging into what she calls the “nerdy stuff” of historical and market research, but also indulging her reigning interest in institutions. As Paulson tells it, “I’m always learning where things have lived through the ages and how they remain fresh and provocative. And I’m always amazed by what inspires collectors like Linda Macklowe to go to such levels.”
“I’m always learning where things have lived through the ages and how they remain fresh and provocative. And I’m always amazed by what inspires collectors like Linda Macklowe to go to such levels.” — Laura Paulson
Allan Schwartzman, a dean of the advisory business, has a mature clientele that includes eminent nonprofits like the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation as well as collectors, 30 percent of whom are actively donating to museums or establishing their own. They are less troubled by the current downturn in the market than those who buy art for investment. The more turbulent the economy, he says, the better his business is.
At Schwartzman&, his full-service firm in Chelsea, he also works directly with artists and curators on large-scale commissions for private museums, most visibly Bernard Paz’s Inhotim, in Brazil, but also for an initiative for the artist Agnes Denes located in what Schwartzman describes as “a historically significant part of the desert in Saudi Arabia, where the ruins of the Nabataeans who built Petra are.” Advisors who serve clients based in very different environments mainly live in New York. Some work out of deeply-staffed offices, others from home with a laptop and phone. You may see them usher collectors into auctions, through galleries and art fairs, or around a Venice Biennale, but most operate discreetly, behind closed doors. As with more intimate relationships, trust is paramount to advisor- client longevity.
Collectors at all levels compete in an unregulated market that is famously opaque and driven as much by emotion as metrics. It costs money to buy art, and the world has a lot of it. Not all of it has lasting value. What price is right? Is there a good time to buy or sell? What is the most extraordinary example of this artist’s work? What about its condition and provenance? Has it been exhibited? Where? Is there supporting literature? A critical consensus? Is it available? Who wants to know?
Unlike stockbrokers or lawyers, art advisors don’t need a license to operate, nor do they bill by the hour. Some work on retainer but most earn commissions on individual acquisitions, even when they take months to transact. None advertise their services—word of mouth is the only calling card advisors need—though the names of prominent advisors like Amy Cappellazzo, Sandy Heller, and Philippe Ségalot frequently appear in the press.
Schwartzman was barely out of college, in 1977, when he was appointed the first curator of New York’s fledgling New Museum of Contemporary Art. His subsequent writing in art and culture magazines found an admirer in the Dallas mega-collector Howard Rachofsky, who hired him as a consultant. One thing led to another, and before long Schwartzman was working far and wide to develop some of the most distinctive art collections in the world. “My clientele grew through my clients,” he remarks.
He also produces and cohosts, with the arts journalist Charlotte Burns, a lively podcast, The Art World: What If? “We always encourage clients, whether they’re new or established collectors, to not spend money in the first six months,” he begins, speaking of his team at Schwartzman&. “Let’s take time looking, learning, assessing short- and long-term goals. With experienced collectors, we see what interests should drop away to focus on others. Newer collectors often have no basis for understanding that what is most easily apprehensible is that which doesn’t last, so we find ways to broaden their thinking.”
Rob Teeters also believes that a collector’s first choice ultimately may not be the best choice. “I do like to challenge clients who aren’t necessarily on board with an artist but come around later,” he notes. “Sometimes years later.” He cites the acclaimed German artist Rosemarie Trockel as an example. “She makes tough, conceptual art. It can be beautiful, but first you have to be seduced by the ideas around it. The aesthetics will follow.”
Teeters was a young architect working for Robert. A. M. Stern and haunting Chelsea galleries in his spare time, when a dealer his age, impressed with his articulate grasp of emergent art, suggested that Teeters might do well as an advisor. That was 20 years ago. Today, he works out of an office in a 19th-century townhouse across the street from the Morgan Library and Museum that has a notable provenance of its own: at one time it was the scene of exclusive salons hosted by none other than Lillie P. Bliss, who grew up in the house and lived there most of her life.
One of the first collectors to see its transformation into Front Desk Apparatus, the name Teeters gave his firm, was Dr. Dana Ardi, possibly the business world’s first “corporate anthropologist.” (Her term for talent spotter.) “I mentor CEOs and build management teams for venture capitalists,” she explains. After 22 years in The Beresford on Central Park West, she began dividing her time and the painting, sculpture, photography, and ceramics she collects between a longtime vacation home in East Hampton and, since 2022, a large apartment with a wraparound terrace in Palm Beach.
“I do like to challenge clients who aren’t necessarily on board with an artist but come around later. Sometimes years later.” — Rob Teeters
“I love working with Rob,” she says, but exults in the monumental bell jar by Allan McCollum that she bought for her property in East Hampton after scrolling online on her own. “Rob couldn’t believe it,” she chuckles. Together they chased an equally significant sculpture by Lynda Benglis that Ardi put indoors. About that, all she can say is, “Bliss.” Teeters also fills blanks in her art education relative to artists like the late Raymond Saunders, and introduces her to living artists. “I find it fascinating to listen to their motivations and hear how they develop their practices,” she continues. “And when I’m intrigued by what they say about a work, I understand it in a different way and like it even more.” She’s most fond of collecting artists from her generation—Mary Heilmann, Sherrie Levine, and Trockel—though Ardi and Teeters recently shifted her ambitions in a more historical direction. With his guidance, she donates to museums every year—recently, a Sophie Calle to the Norton in West Palm, and a Lorna Simpson to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. “Every piece I buy takes me on a journey.” Ardi reflects. “I don’t just spend money. And I am not a passive client.”
Several collectors in Paulson’s circle have retired to Palm Beach, where ambient sunlight and hot, humid air have impacted artworks in ways their owners did not expect: “It’s interesting to see how the juxtaposition of architecture, sunshine, and swimming pools alter art that lived very well in a place like, say, Chicago. A Rothko, for example, looks brighter and flashier in Palm Beach.”
If Paulson, Schwartzman, and Teeters develop collections around specific artists, periods, or styles, with an eye to rarity, Joyce Varvatos works project-to-project with collectors who have more than one residence, including several in South Florida. She gives as much weight to the architecture and interior design of a home as to a collector’s taste. As she puts it, “I want them to be proud of their art,” rather than give in to the herd.
To be continued in PALMER Vol. 9. To read the full story, click here to purchase the issue.