Synopsis
At a Fine Art Fund brunch in 2006, Christie’s Amy Cappellazzo pointed to a new market normal: Private sales had not only ballooned in size, they stepped into the spotlight. “Private sales used to be a very Byzantine, clandestine market,” she said, “but these ones were publicly confirmed and written about.” With headline-grabbing deals like David Geffen’s $137.5 million de Kooning sale to Steven Cohen, collecting began to mirror high finance — complete with analysts and third-party advisers. As Cappellazzo noted, if Griffin paid $80 million for a Pollock, then $8 million suddenly looked like a steal — and maybe opacity was no longer the asset it used to be. Epilogue: The art market remains… pretty opaque.
