In Both Primary and Secondary Markets, Presentation Drives Price |
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In Both Primary and Secondary Markets, Presentation Drives Price
Dealers and auctioneers agree that how artworks are displayed can meaningfully affect how buyers perceive and value them.
In the back storage rooms at Rago Auctions in Lambertville, New Jersey, is a large inventory of mostly wooden pedestals, painted black or white, in various sizes, for consignments of sculpture that arrive without them. Sometimes, painting consignments come in without frames. Rago doesn’t keep a supply of frames in back, because “frames are customized,” Meredith Hilferty, director of fine art sales at the auction house, told Observer, adding that she wouldn’t want to squeeze a painting into the wrong-sized frame.
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Some contemporary paintings have paint along the sides of the canvas and are not intended to be framed; for those that ought to be framed, Hilferty informs consignors that if they don’t want to provide a frame, she will have one made and deduct the cost from the sale price. “Frames and pedestals help the sale, because they elevate the presentation,” she explained. Prospective bidders get a sense, thanks to those frames and pedestals, of what the artworks might look like in their homes. Without them, bidders need to use their imaginations, and while a work might sell anyway, it might sell for less. Better not to chance it.
Pedestals for sculptures and frames for paintings are generally viewed as accessories to be switched out as tastes change from one era or one collector to another. The art is what has prominence. Still, paintings without frames often do not look complete, according to the dealers and auctioneers who sell them, and small and even medium-sized sculptures may seem inconsequential when not shown on a pedestal that raises them to eye level.
And it’s not just dealers who believe this. So do artists. Deborah Butterfield, well known........