Top Dealers Take Aim At Russian Art Market: Potential Is Huge, But Patience Is Required

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

: "Business is business, but Russia is romance," Armand Hammer, who pioneered the sale of Russian art and antiques to Americans, wrote in his 1932 memoir, The Quest of the Romanoff Treasure.

Today Russia is business, the bigger the better. According to Forbes magazine, the land of Lenin and Stalin has quickly taken its place behind its capitalist comrade, the United States, as the world's leading producer of billionaires.

New Russia's appetite for luxury combined with old Russia's deserved reputation for culture is luring the world's most enterprising dealers, nearly 70 of whom resigned themselves to the complexity of doing business here to participate in the second Moscow World Fine Art Fair from September 20 to 26.

A gala evening preview on September 19 brought out a mixed, often blue jean-clad crowd of onlookers, curious to inspect millions of dollars worth of blue-chip painting, sculpture, furniture, accessories and jewelry offered by leading specialists from nine countries and two continents. Two VIP receptions the following night had a more moneyed mien.

Well-heeled and multilingual, the rich arrived in chauffeured Mercedes, leaving their ever-present bodyguards waiting in the brightly lit street outside the ManPge, the tastefully refurbished neoclassical exhibition hall at the foot of Red Square and the Kremlin, the city's most famous landmarks. French designer Patrick Hourcade hardscaped the ManPge's spare, sunny interior for the temporary display, creating the grand, arcaded galleries that lined the perimeter of the hall and clustered in freestanding groups in the floor's center.

The Moscow World Fine Art Fair is the creation of Geneva-based Art Culture Studio, which this year more than doubled the show and cut out some of the red tape that has made the international trade in art and antiques all but impossible.

Yves Bouvier, president of Art Culture Studio and chairman of the show, told 80 journalists, most of them from France, Great Britain and the United States, that with the continuing support of the Russian Academy of the Arts, the City of Moscow, the Russian Ministry of Culture, the Russian Ministry for Taxes and Levies and the Ministry of Culture Agency, the Moscow World Fine Art Fair would succeed.

He called last year's fair, at which selling was not allowed on the floor but could be privately arranged afterwards, "experimental." This year, he said, customs officials would be present to push through the necessary paperwork, providing that Russian collectors were willing to pay the 18 percent value-added tax. Russian buyers were also free to "reserve" art and antiques to be purchased abroad from foreign exhibitors and delivered to domiciles outside of Russia. Domestic law currently prevents foreign buyers from removing cultural property a century or older from Russia, a regulation that, for the moment, makes it unlikely that the Moscow World Fine Art Fair will become the next Maastricht. Everyone associated with the art market in Russia is lobbying for reform.

"The laws are a real obstacle for the development of the antiques market. The underlying idea is to protect national heritage, but sometimes the law is too severe," said Anna Savelyeva, the well-spoken manager of international relations and private treaty sales at Gelos, Moscow's leading fine arts auctioneer and an exhibitor at the fair.

Christie's also took a booth, sending representatives from several offices to staff its sparkling display on the show's lower floor, where 12 of the world's top jewelers set up next to Mercury, the giant luxury brands conglomerate that is to Russia what France's LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton is to western Europe and the United States.

With consumer capitalism a relatively new phenomenon, name recognition, from Tiffany to Chagall, is all. One exhibitor, Moscow art and antiques dealer Elena Malinko, even calls her business "Foremost Names." Her mission, she says, is to offer "standard bearers of style and artistic tastes of various epochs and of different countries."

"Make sure you write that it's from the Marina Picasso Collection," instructed another name-conscious dealer, François Ditesheim of Geneva, whose stand was almost entirely devoted to paintings, drawings and ceramics by Marina's famous grandfather.

"Sixteen years ago was the beginning of changes in this country," said 30-year-old Yana Stebleva, Mercury's polished press representative, recalling Christmas 1991, when president Mikhael S. Gorbachev resigned, leading to the peaceful dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). A decade and a half later, Russian art is exceeding all expectations at auction. Sotheby's $35.2 million sale of Russian art in New York last April was its largest ever. The previous November, Christie's London lodged a record price for a Russian painting, $2.1 million.

"We will await our clients' instructions on whether they want to take possession of property here or arrange to buy from us elsewhere," said silver specialist Anthony Marks at the start of the show. The London dealer is embracing a global strategy, exhibiting at Grosvenor House and Palm Beach, as well as at private showings in Hong Kong and Sydney. Offsetting eye-catching cases of Faberge and Russian silver was Marks' giant German nef, the St Marguerite, made by Simon Rosenau, circa 1895, and tagged $400,000.

"I've priced everything for export," said New York dealer Richard Feigen, who encouraged customers to work out their own tax arrangements. Last year, the Old Master pictures specialist joined Paris dealer Didier Aaron and Sonia Abracen, a Moscow fair founder, to form Feigen-Aaron, a London-based art dealership aimed explicitly at Russian collectors, many of whom own second homes in the British capital or in the south of France. Highlights of the Feigen-Aaron stand included a larger version of a signed and dated Hubert Robert painting at Moscow's Pushkin Museum, $1.25 million; a small canvas formerly in the Hermitage Museum; and two works by Sir Peter Paul Rubens.

New York and Paris-based designer Juan Pablo Molyneux, co-chairman of the Friends of the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, is also quickly learning the ropes. Richly decorated with Russian and French neoclassical furniture and Aubusson carpets, the 5,000-square-foot London apartment Molyneux decorated for the daughter of a Russian businessman can be seen in the October 2005 issue of Architectural Digest. For the businessman and his wife - who maintain homes in Brussels, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Tashkent and Moscow - Molyneux is designing a 170,000-square-foot house outside Moscow for themselves.

Judging by the steady appearance of dark-suited men and their bejeweled consorts in their booth, two exhibitors who needed no local introduction were Andre Ruzhnikov, a Hillsborough, Calif., dealer and adviser in Russian art and antiques, and his partner, Vladimir S. Voronchenko, a Moscow businessman who maintains an office in New York.

"Russian art is what collectors here want," said Ruzhnikov, who sprang to prominence in 2004 when he and Voronchenko helped broker the sale of Malcolm Forbes' $100 million Faberge collection to Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire who is said to be Russia's largest art buyer. To acquire the Forbes collection, Vekselberg set up a private foundation, The Link of Times, installing Voronchenko as its chairman. Vekselberg, Voronchenko and Ruzhnikov are partners in the recently formed Aurora, a fund for investing in Russian art.

Aside from six US exhibitors and a handful of dealers scouting the show, few Americans were visible on the floor, though London's Telegraph newspaper reported seeing New York collector Ronald Lauder.

"I'm just here to tell the Russians what they might collect, to show them objects of relevance to their culture and history," said Torkom Demirjian. The president of Ariadne Galleries in New York prides himself on having the largest private collection of Scythian gold, Eurasian artifacts that are also magnificently represented in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

From ancient artifacts at Ariadne to the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Andre Lanskoy at Le Minotaure and Galerie Cazeau-BéraudiPre, both of Paris, a broad spectrum of Russian art and artifacts was arrayed at the fair.

"Moscow was once an art capital and we think it will be again," said Ezra Chowaiki, a New York private dealer in Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary masters. Chowaiki and his partner, Lula Mosionzhnikm, attracted local notice with three Andy Warhol "Hammer and Sickle" graphite and wash on paper studies, each $160,000, of 1977. The first monographic treatment of an American artist, "Andy Warhol: Artist of Contemporary Life," is on view at Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery, home to the world's best collection of Russian art.

Christie Mayer's collection of French Art Deco perfume bottles struck just the right note with shoppers, who browsed her display on successive days. Following the Moscow show, the niece of art price-guide publisher Henry Mayer was on her way to Paris for a private view, then on to Geneva, where her 341-lot Perfume Presentations Auction 2005 is scheduled for October 22.

"It's the greatest map of St Petersburg, commissioned by Peter the Great. It's the first copy we've owned in 25 years," Daniel Crouch of Bernard J. Shapero Gallery, which shared a booth with Lame Duck Rare Books of Boston, said of the 1753 master engraving splashed across his back wall.

"Two or three of our best customers are from Moscow," explained Crouch, one of only six British exhibitors. With 25 stands, French dealers dominated the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, a nod to the centuries' old cultural liaison between the two countries.

"We came to meet people, see how they live and what they like," said Divina Gismondi, speaking on behalf of her father, Jean Gismondi, whose Paris and Antibes showrooms are stocked with neoclassical furniture and paintings, and colorful pietra dura cabinetry. Other French dealers believe the Russian market is ripe for French Art Nouveau and Art Deco design.

"I did the Moscow show last year and sold a Jugendstil painting," said Paris dealer Frank Laigneau. A highlight of his stand this year was a five-light cast-iron candelabrum made by Albin Müller for the St Louis World's Fair of 1904.

"There is enormous opportunity in this country, but also a lot of work to be done. We need time to educate collectors and develop clients. I believe it will take three to five years," said Paris Art Deco dealer Michel Giraud, whose views were shared by most of his colleagues.

Until then, the 11 exhibitors who may benefit most from the Moscow fair are the Russian dealers themselves, whose inventory of Biedermeier-like Karelian birch furniture, enameled porcelain and classical bronzes have never been shown to better advantage.

One local source recently put the size of Moscow's art and antiques market at between $800 million and $1.5 billion and growing. A catalyst to that growth will surely be the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, which is set to return to the ManPge in May 2006.

Sidebar article

NEW YORK CITY - Russia is making a gift of its art to the world this fall. Here, a brief roundup of some major events from New York to Venice.

Guggenheim Museum, New York

As some of the world's top art and antiques dealers prepared to meet for the Moscow World Fine Art Fair from September 20 to 26, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin was in New York for "Russia!," the major exhibition that opened under his sponsorship at the Guggenheim Museum on September 16. The show's debut coincided with the start of the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

On view through January 11, "Russia!" is the most comprehensive exhibition of Russian art ever mounted in the United States. The show presents parallel tales of the development of Russian art over the past eight centuries and the formation of Western art collections in Russia beginning in the Eighteenth Century. Masterworks of each era are displayed along the coiled staircase of the museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The installation itself was designed by Jacques Grange collaborating with, among others, Hervé Aaron, the French antiques dealer who recently formed a partnership with New York dealer Richard Feigen to sell art to Russian collectors.

"Russia!" begins with Thirteenth Century icons and continues with portraiture in both painting and sculpture from the Eighteenth through the Twentieth Centuries, critical realism of the Nineteenth Century, Social Realism from the communist era, landscapes, concluding with pioneering abstraction and experimental Contemporary art.

Many of the 275 works on view - some of which are drawn from the collections of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas I - have never been west of the Baltic.

A team of Russian and American experts produced the show, which was organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in collaboration with the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography of the Russian Federation, State Russian Museum, The State Tretyakov Gallery, State Hermitage Museum and ROSIZO State Museum Exhibition Center.

An accompanying catalog, Russia! Nine Hundred Years of Masterpieces and Master Collections,includes essays by James Billington, Mikhail Shwydkoi, Gerald Vzdornov, Mikhail Allenov, Dmitrii Sarabianov, Robert Rosenblum, Evgenia Petrova, Lidia Iovleva, Albert Kostenevich, Sergei Androsov, Boris Groys, Ekaterina Degot, Valerie Hillings and Alexander Borovsky. It has been described as one of the most comprehensive sources on the history of Russian art and history ever published in English.

Several public programs are planned in conjunction with the "Russia!" including "Russian Art, International Artists," a panel discussion that will consider how Russian art influences their individual practices. The panel will include Eleanor Antin, Barbara Bloom, Frank Stella and David Wilson, and will take place on Tuesday, November 15, at 6:30 pm at the Guggenheim.

"Russia!" follows earlier Guggenheim endeavors in the field. In 1981, the museum mounted "Art of the Avant-Garde in Russia: Selections from the George Costakis Collection," followed by "The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932" in 1992, "Amazons of the Avant-Garde" in 2000 and "Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism" in 2003.

A La Vieille Russie, New York

Founded in Kiev in 1851, New York's oldest firm specializing in Russian art and antiques, A La Vieille Russie, recently opened a loan exhibition at its Fifth Avenue and 59th Street gallery to coincide with "Russia!," on view just 30 blocks north.

On view through November 12, "Spirituality to Symbolism: Trends in Russian Art" examines the religious, social and physical environment that shaped Russian art. Works from the Fifteenth Century to the early Twentieth Century include rare Novgorod icons, landscapes and portraiture, and works by such noted artists as Levitan, Repin, Vasnetsov and Vrubel.

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

"A Quest for Identity: Russian Art in The Second Half of The 19th Century" - surveying painting, sculpture, decorative and graphic arts, architecture and photography - is on view at Paris's Musee d'Orsay through January 8.

The show is France's first major review of Russian art created between 1850 and the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917, a half century during which artists rejected Western models. In search of an indigenous "Russian" art, they looked instead to Slavonic myths, history and folk art, as well as contemporary social and political conditions. Topics explored by the show, which the Musee d'Orsay says was occasioned by outstanding loans from Russia, are "Itinerants" realism, 1910s Neo-Primitivism and Talashkino folk crafts.

The search for a Russian "national art" is also the theme of a series of public programs continuing through the fall at the Musee d'Orsay.

Europalia Festival, Brussels

Opened October 3 and running through February 21, the Europalia, an annual cultural festival, is dedicated to the arts of Russia. In addition to performances by the Gergiev Orchestra and the Bolshoi Ballet, there are 18 exhibitions on view throughout Brussels, among them a display of Soviet propaganda art.

Venice Biennale

Through November 6, Russia is participating in the 51st Venice Biennale in the famed sinking city on the Adriatic. On view in the Russian pavilion, built by the academician Aleksey Shchusev at the beginning of the last century, are exhibits by the Moscow-based video artists Escape, and an installation by artists Galina Myznikova and Sergey Provorov working with architect Konstantin Larin.

Sidebar article

The week of parties planned in conjunction with the Moscow World Fine Art Fair produced one invitation for which few sent regrets: a reception at the Kremlin accompanied by the promise of bell ringing, a military horse parade and a concert by violinist Yuri Bashmet.

The Thursday evening benefit jointly hosted by the World Monuments Fund Europe and Art Culture Studio was designed to raise funds for Ostankino, the crumbling former pleasure palace built by Count Nikolai Cheremetiev in honor of his actress wife, who died just three years after they were married in 1800.

"To my knowledge, this is the first time that a prominent group of Russian and international donors are jointly participating in such an event," said WMF Europe's president Bertrand du Vignaud, perhaps inspired by the high-profile outreach programs of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, which has friends groups around the world.

"We're trying to take off the shirt of the palace without taking out the jacket," Gennaydi Vdovin, Ostankino's director, said earlier in the week, explaining the laborious efforts to save the magnificent neoclassical building, still unheated and unelectrified two centuries after its completion. Made to resemble stone, the wood and plaster structure is rotting from within.

Ostankino was erected between 1791 and 1798 on what was at the time a country estate six miles north of Moscow. The interior of the domed and porticoed palace survives as one of the finest examples of early neoclassical Russian design, elaborately decorated with late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Russian, German, Italian and French furniture, paintings, porcelain and bronzes. With nearly 500 examples, Ostankino possesses one of the finest collections of neoclassical lighting anywhere.

In addition to the Italian and Egyptian pavilions that flank the palace, Ostankino boasts its own private theater, one of the best preserved in Europe. A variety of ingenious mechanical devices enabled a large, central chandelier to be raised or lowered on command when the elliptical hall was temporarily converted to a ballroom. A single coach is all that survives of the theater's original collection of costumes and props.

Ostankino was surrendered by its owners to the Soviet state following the 1917 Revolution. Subsequently declared a national monument and museum, the palace has been restored from the inside out, its structure neglected until the World Monuments Fund initiated a campaign to save it two years ago. Drawn up by its director, a ten-year plan to preserve Ostankino, which this year spent 50 million rubles (roughly $1.7 million) on repairs, is being funded by federal and local government in combination with gifts from private donors.