Buying art and antiques is unlike purchasing anything else. Buying guides and consumer magazine ratings do not exist for these objects as they do for appliances, automobiles, clothing, colleges, food and so much else, and collectors are forced to rely on the knowledge and integrity of the private dealer or gallery owner.
Finding out who is a reputable dealer or gallery is no easy task, as the Better Business Bureau will only know of complaints filed with the agency (an unlikely place for dissatisfied collectors to go) and local museum curators may never have had dealings with the gallery. Word-of-mouth references are not always at hand. Perhaps, a collector's only source of information about a gallery is the association to which it may belong.
There are dozens of these associations in the United States (some regional, others national), and the number is growing. Many differences exist between them, but they all share a common belief with regard to prospective collectors. "Membership in the Boston Art Dealers Association assures collectors that a gallery is stable, has a clear record of ethics and a history of good business practices," said Virginia Anderson, former director of Gallery NAGA, which is a member of the association. "Membership is a type of certification for a gallery."
The same is heard across the land. "The association assures a collector that the highest levels of business practices and ethical standards have been set for the members," said Christopher Addison, director of the Addison-Ripley Gallery in Washington, D.C. and a past president of the Washington Art Dealers Association. Noting that even though "nonmembers may be perfectly reputable," Sylvan Cole, the now-deceased president of the International Fine Print Dealers Association, said that "when a collector is interested in prints, he or she will know that this organization represents print dealers you can trust and who are the best in the field." Satenig St. Marie, one-time executive director of the Antique Dealers' Association of America, also stated that "if you are buying something valuable, of course collectors would want to know if a dealer is a member of this association, because that means they are of the highest integrity."
For most of these associations, accepted business practices and ethical standards are a matter of bylaws, voted on by members and published in the membership directory and other promotional material of the group. "Membership is composed of professional antiques dealers who are dedicated to integrity, honesty and ethical conduct in the antiques trade," reads the Statement of Purpose in the membership directory of the Antiques Dealers' Association of America. However, some associations have no formal means of handling a complaint about a member, while others may have an ethics committee that hasn't met in years. "We don't hear complaints about members very often," said Gilbert Edelson, administrative vice-president of the Art Dealers Association of America. "I can't remember the last one."
The Boston Art Dealers Association has no ethics committee and, perhaps, not surprisingly, Virginia Anderson does not recall ever hearing any complaints by artists or collectors about any of the 21 members. As the association also does not have any full-time or part-time staff (the three officers -- a president, vice-president and treasurer -- are member dealers), complaints might have to be lodged with the very dealer with whom there is a dispute.
Even when dealers groups have ethics committees, their existence is usually not advertised by the associations, and collectors may not even be aware that there is a means by which a dispute with a member gallery can be resolved. In some instances, in fact, the association itself may be the last to know of a problem with a member. The owner of Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery in San Francisco declared bankruptcy and fled the country as a result of improper business practices, yet "none of us had any inkling of the problems," said John Pence, president of the San Francisco Art Dealers Association. "We don't know the inner runnings of each other." Similarly, the Middendorf Gallery in Washington, D.C. resigned its membership in the Washington Art Dealers Association in the midst of civil lawsuits over its financial dealings with collectors and other dealers yet never had been called to account by the association. "We hadn't been aware of what was going on before the suits were filed," Christopher Addison said. No better at policing members is the Art & Antique Dealers League of America, where a member who sold stolen property and lied about it to the police "went to jail and got kicked out of the league at about the same time," according to Joseph Kilian, the long-time former secretary to the group.
Perhaps the clearest statement of an association's eagerness to police its members was made by Satenig St. Marie, "We're not a group you should bring your problems to." The primary purpose of these groups is to promote their members and their common ethical goals, rather than to enforce certain practices. Members are assessed dues -- usually ranging from $100 to $1,200 annually -- that pay for the publication of a directory of brochures (complete with descriptions of the member galleries, upcoming shows and a map with members' locations highlighted), which are placed at hotels, restaurants and other popular sites. The money may also be used to run an annual art fair (available only to members who each get a booth) as well as to take out advertisements (listing all or some of the members) in local newspapers or national magazines. Both the Boston Art Dealers Association and the Chicago Art Dealers Association, which are primarily devoted to the sellers of contemporary art, have had panel discussions for the public in order to widen interest in the art of the present day. The St. Louis Gallery Association sponsors a yearly bus tour of various members' galleries, and the Detroit Art Dealers Association holds what is called an "art crawl," in which members open up their galleries on a given Saturday night.
Informing the public that these galleries exist is a central objective of many associations. "We want to draw the attention of the community to what we're doing," John Pence noted, "collectively getting together to draw on strengths." For the same reasons, Professional Art Dealers of Atlanta (Georgia) formed in 1995, the year before the Summer Olympic games in that city, in order to "let people know there is gallery life here," Fay Gold, former gallery owner in Atlanta, said. "We all chipped in to do public relations."
The reason that the Atlanta association was titled "professional art dealers" is to distinguish its 12 members from frame shops and other retail outlets that call themselves galleries but do not exhibit original art, she added. In a similar vein, the Sun Valley Gallery Association in Idaho requires its members to hold at least eight changing exhibitions per year of original art, again to separate themselves from gift and frame shops as well as gallery chains. In general, dealer and gallery associations have as members those who represent the higher end of the market and who have worked in the field for at least three-to-five years.
The basis of admission into a dealer or gallery association is, essentially, acceptance by other dealers or galleries. The Art Dealers Association of America extends membership by invitation, and most others do the same or require applicants to submit letters of recommendation from two or three current association members. "The art world is really very small, and everyone knows everyone else in the field," Edelson stated. "Dealers know what each other are doing."
He noted that his favorite "endorsement" of one dealer's candidacy for admission read, in its entirety, "'I've been asked to submit a letter of recommendation for such-and-such a dealer. Here is that letter.' It's a classic, revealing the awkward position that one dealer put one of our members in."
However, even those dealers and galleries that receive glowing recommendations from current members may be turned down for reasons that are not altogether objective. Joseph Kilian pointed out that "someone who has been sued by a collector or who received bad publicity in the newspaper probably doesn't have the spotless reputation we require. It could also be that some member doesn't want so-and-so in the League. It may be as simple as that."
Having a good rapport with one's peers may be a reason that disciplinary action against association members is rare. "The Art Dealers Association of America is an old boy's club," said Victor Wiener, former executive director of the Appraisers Society of America, which requires applicants to submit examples of their past work for review and to take an eight hour-long examination in appraisal methodology and individual areas of expertise. "They're very protective of their own, while we are very protective of the public." He noted that the Society's ethics committee is active in reviewing complaints from collectors, of which they receive three or four per year on the average. "We do kick people out."
Joshua Kaufman, a Washington, D.C. lawyer who has represented a number of artists in their disputes with dealers and galleries, also claimed that "ethics are not binding" for association members. "I don't think a gallery is going to quake in its boots if an artist claims he hasn't been paid for a sale, and the artist says he'll go to the ethics committee. I've seen the most well-known galleries, which are members of well-established gallery associations, treat their artists shabbily, and it doesn't seem to bother anybody."
Dealer and gallery associations represent the hopes and best interests of their members. Often, those interests are the same as collectors, such as the print disclosure laws that the International Fine Print Dealers Association lobbied to see enacted in 11 states around the country, requiring dealers reveal all relevant information to would-be buyers about the limited edition graphic prints they are selling. The Art Dealers Association of America was instrumental in creating an Art Advisory Panel at the Internal Revenue Service, which evaluates appraisals for charitable donations of art objects, and the association also helped to found the New York City-based International Foundation for Art Research, which tracks stolen and forged art and antiques around the world.
As any trade association, these membership groups also attempt to promote and protect their members' profitability, which is where conflicts with collectors and artists may arise. "First and foremost, these organizations set standards, and their members by and large comply with these standards," Edelson said. "Not everyone lives up to these standards all the time, but the standards are there and that gives confidence to the collector that these are dealers you can trust."
A previous version of this post was published by The Chicago Tribune.
Integrity is a valuable thing in the Arts Marketplace where 'deception and greed' have no place in a society balancing 'fairness with freedom'. Responsibility, is a thing that often requires reinforcement in any trade or commerce ... it is something we all hope will develop better in the future. 'Open facts' and discussion are always key to the improvement/reliability of any exchange or patronage in Art and Art Institutions ...