If You Wish to be in the Picture

If Yossi Hakhamy, the Israeli Phoenix, were to put his collection, consisting of over a thousand works, up for public auction, the Israeli art market would crack, if not collapse entirely. This would be a massive and sharp vote of no confidence from the most consistent and significant collector of Israeli art. This means that the Israeli market is sensitive, slightly capricious, and still lacks a true foundation.

Tonight and tomorrow night, Gordon Gallery is offering for auction over 400 works of art by Israelis, Jews, and international artists. The offering includes modern painting, conservative Jewish painting, some sculpture, and quite a bit of graphic art. The heart of the auction is focused on one collection, the Gourari collection. This collection is a life story of an Israeli for whom art and art collecting were a way of life, if not a reason for existence. Since Gourari's story has been widely told in the Globes magazine and other newspapers, I feel exempt from repeating it. But still, a little something.

The bulk of the collection is Eretz-Israeli and early Israeli. Many works by Nahum Gutman, Aryeh Lubin, Pinchas Litvinovsky, Avigdor Stamtzky, Shmuel Ovadiah. A collection accumulated out of love, out of personal connections. Not money or commercial wisdom collected it. A thin note of worldly sorrow stretches over the very act of selling. Ostensibly, this collection belongs in one of the museums, as the collection, in its entirety, serves as a testimony of a period, of the 1930s and 1940s, of the spirit, style, and tastes of the time. But anything that can be sold, will eventually be sold. And so, the collection is up for sale.

Gordon Gallery established public auctions in Israel after operating for over a decade as an avant-garde gallery. In Gordon, from the mid-1960s, local young artists who are today known as representatives of Israeli modernism, such as Yair Garbuz, Michael Droks, Yigal Tumarkin, Uri Lifsitz, and Rafi Lavi, exhibited their works. For years, Gordon was the alternative to the bourgeois cultural offering led here by Chaim Gamzu, who ran the Tel Aviv Museum.

The decision of Isaiah Yariv, the owner of Gordon, to specialize in auctions was met with hostility. Many artists and critics saw it as a violent abandonment of the Israeli modernist struggle. Others, on the other hand, saw it as a sign of the maturation of the local art market and a welcomed joining of the family of nations that have conducted auctions for years. Gordon's auction adopted the commercial principles of large Western auction houses. Above all, the enlightened law prevails: supply and demand.

This current auction by Gordon includes, in addition to the Gourari collection, works by Lea Nikel, Yohanan Simon, Uri Lifsitz, Ofer Laloosh, Rafi Lavi, Yosef Zaritsky, Mordechai Ardon, Avigdor Arikha, Yosl Berger, Yaakov Dorchin, Reuven Rubin, Kikoyan, and Carmen. In other words, a mixed list representing Eretz-Israeli painting, the Jewish Paris school, Israeli modern painting, and the conservative school. Young Israeli art is not included in this auction, and generally is not included in Gordon's auctions. Michaela Naaman or Dganit Brest, whose acceptance process has long been completed, even through museum exhibitions, have not proven to Gordon their marketability, and therefore are not here. Gordon, in this matter, acts according to the logic of sales, not according to the concepts of young criticism.

Sometimes, auctions are based on some kind of hype, on drama. In Israel, drama will be achieved if the auction includes an unknown significant work or, conversely, an especially famous one by a great master. For instance, "Agripas Street" by Aryeh Aruch or "Nimrod" by Yitzhak Danziger. An offering like this in any auction generates movement among collectors, museum managers, brokers, and gallery owners, and elevates the auction to an event. But most auctions are based on a known inventory, and therefore, they are usually devoid of drama. I think this current auction is of that type. In my opinion, it is an interesting, respectable auction. An auction that once again confirms the existence of a legitimate, traditional, accumulating, and growing local art market.

An artwork by Leon Anglesberg, "Cypress Trees in the Jerusalem Mountains," is valued at $5,000. A typical piece from the mid-1960s by Yosl Berger is valued at $5,000. A fairly well-known "Girl and Two Birds" by Berger is valued at $6,000. So, from a commercial standpoint, based on most of the familiar financial calculations, there has been no notable movement in the price of Yosl Berger’s work in the last decade.

In the auction, there is a quality selection of watercolors and oils by Zaritsky. That is, watercolors representing the high average of the master, but still works that no longer elicit astonishment. They are valued around $10,000 for a watercolor, $6,000 for an oil. Ostensibly, oil is more expensive than watercolor, but the oils offered here radiate a routine Zaritsky style. Overall, Zaritsky's prices, considered the founder of Israeli abstraction, are fairly firm due to a limited inventory and a constant group of collectors.

Around ten works by Marcel Janco are offered here, spanning from the 1950s to the 1980s. Figurative and narrative painting, with some abstract works. "Ein Hod," from 1954, is valued at $25,000, and another "Ein Hod," an oil on cardboard from that period, is valued at $22,000. Even if these are Janco's formal price levels, I don't think these are moderate estimates. And in general, buying Janco's work must be based on real knowledge and familiarity with his oeuvre. The illustrative dimension present in a substantial part of his work is burdensome. His strength as an abstract painter is still unclear. His works from the early 20th century, from the Dadaist era, have a market and well-justified prices.

There are no accurate estimates regarding the scope of the local art market. A common assumption: an annual turnover of less than $10 million. Some data on part of the composition of this estimate: Gordon's semi-annual auctions generate about $1.5 million per auction. The public auctions of Sotheby's, held in Israel, are not dedicated solely to Israeli art, but still generate a movement of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Three to four local auction houses, which have not gained the interest or authority of Gordon, generate about three-quarters of a million dollars annually, through direct sales, post-sale transactions, and various brokerage activities. The annual purchasing budget of all Israeli museums combined is around $400,000, including dedicated donations, scholarships, and prizes.

A small market, not minuscule, comparable in size to the Dutch or Danish market. It is still a long way from the markets in Düsseldorf, London, Milan, New York, in terms of contemporary art. By the way, if comparisons or yardsticks are requested, the total annual budget of the Tel Aviv Museum is around $7 million.

Only in 1967, after the Six-Day War, did Israeli art start being sold in quantities that justified the beginning of the definition "market." The birth of this market came with trendiness, lack of taste, and quick wealth. Let us not forget those days. The showiness, the emptiness.

But, time did its work, and what nature did not do, human nature did, and so understanding, refinement, and education crept into the local art market. Quality works by Aryeh Aruch, Menachem Shemi, Lea Nikel, or Uri Reissman found their rightful prices. An internal hierarchy was established, combining quality and uniqueness with marketability.

A true market is based on collectors. The New York market, in the 1970s and 1980s, was based on the Sach's, on Peter Ludwig, the West German chocolate manufacturer, on Agnelli, Fiat. Such names. Collectors who built a commercial and critical system almost identical to the museum system. They hired their own curators, printed catalogs specifically for them. By the way, even the Israeli Riklis was well connected to this collector system. The connection between senior collectors and galleries and museums was consistent, specialized. A partnership, I would say.

Only Yossi Hakhamy, in the Israeli collecting context, has crossed the naive stage of collecting. His collection is consistent, reasoned, systematic. Most other local collectors built personal, sporadic systems that reflect personal tastes, cultural biography, and purchases influenced by "moods." With Hakhamy, you will find the history of lyrical abstraction alongside the contemporary avant-garde, while with others, you may find burdensome gaps: representations of the Paris school and a lack of representation of Zaritsky, for example. However, it will be interesting to see the total collection of attorney Micha Kaspi, and in twenty years, it will be interesting to see the collection of Doron Sabag, a young businessman who recently entered the field.

The Gourari collection, offered tomorrow for sale, is an innocent collection. In my opinion, it doesn't have "high points." It is full of taste and charm, without concentration of works that could refresh our understanding of local art in the 1930s and 1940s. "The Bathing Woman" by Nahum Gutman, from 1928, is of high quality, but not surprising, not changing thinking. However, Zaritsky's "Eagle on the Temple Mount" from 1924 is rare and important for understanding Zaritsky's painting approach. The estimate of $16,000 is reasonable. The landscape by Stamtzky from 1934 is a special painting document. The estimate of $8,000 is correct.

In other words, even if the Gourari collection is innocent, it is full of gems, some of which deserve to be included in the representative Israeli collections of local museums.

In everything said here, there is no recommendation to buy this or that work. And there is no guarantee regarding the preservation of the price of any work or the possibility of making any profit. I have been following the Israeli and international art market for over 20 years, and so, I was young, and now I am old, and I saw Andy Warhol's "Marilyn Monroe" print rise from $600 to $48,000 and return to $8,000 within ten years. I saw Israeli surrealism receive $8,000 at the beginning of the 1970s, and it didn't move from that dollar until 1992. Personal advice: Don't be too clever. Buy what you truly love. Because the "educated naive buyer" will eventually be right.