Art: Bull Market

The international art world is feeding a bull market of its own, led by the French impressionists and easy-to-take early works by Picasso, Matisse, Dufy and Chagall. The boom got under way soon after World War II, but the event that proved the market’s strength, art dealers now agree, was the sale of Department Store Tycoon Gabriel Cognacq’s collection on May 14, 1952. Before the day was over the auctioneer had heard closing bids totaling 305 million francs ($871,428), a postwar record. In last month’s Paris auctions, the steadily rising market raised a question: it was not how sound is the boom, but how high will it go?

At Galerie Charpentier, a mediocre Monet brought more than $4,000; so did a Renoir portrait which was more oddity than masterpiece (it was painted on a ten-inch circular stone slab). A Rouault landscape was knocked down for $5,700, an early Montmartre view by Utrillo went for $5,300, a Still Life with Flowers by Pierre Bonnard was quickly bid up from $5,700 to $14,000. Even a small Chagall gouache went for $1,720.

Demand is brisk for French 18th century paintings and old Italian masters, as well as moderns. But the dealers think early fauve and impressionist paintings are today’s price leaders for a simple reason: both periods were of relatively brief duration. Said one Paris art dealer: “We have more than a hundred collectors waiting, willing to pay between $45,000 and $85,000 for a first-class impressionist or fauve painting.”

Ethusiasm for impressionist paintings goes far beyond the auction rooms. French Critic François Mauriac puts it down to a nostalgic longing for times past. But the curator of Paris’ Musée de l’Orangerie, where the recent U.S. loan show of French 19th century painting pulled 2,000 to 2,500 visitors daily, thinks the reason is even simpler: “People like to see pictures they understand.”