Foreword to our Fall 2020 Sale of Modern, Impressionist and 19th Century Art
Click here to view our Fall 2020 Sale of Modern, Impressionist and 19th Century Art
This presentation offers a vetted selection of fine art of quality, from various private collectors in Canada, the USA, and owned by Alan Klinkhoff Gallery. The highlights depend only upon your taste and budget. While the range in prices is vast, the constant is that each is a work of quality and available for your purchase at only a fair price.
We regularly use the word “vetted” because we believe that it is an important aspect of our business model and highly advantageous for prospective buyers. We offer for your purchase a selection of works of quality, each and every one a work we are proud to encourage you to buy. Looking around at the evolution of the commerce of selling “art, the costs of putting a “load of pictures” up for sale online are so low and the profit margins so high that there has been a proliferation of online auction sales where, let’s be honest, the “stuff” just isn’t any good. While some might suggest that these selling venues risk a downgrade to their brand with this eBay quality of supply, the financial reward to their shareholders is a generous one. Inundated with offerings, it has become increasingly important for serious art buyers to limit their shopping to venues offering a professionally vetted selection and market respected expertise.
A review of the last 12 months emphasizes the advantages for all stakeholders of the transparent and fixed price fine art selling platform offered at our Montreal and Toronto locations and internationally at Klinkhoff.ca
Mitigating risk while achieving value is the optimum objective of any seller of important fine art. Our fixed price formula and low aggregate commissions is the most advantageous option. For buyers of important fine art, the availability of a quality, vetted supply of fine art at competitive prices offered with a financial efficiency, that is no buyer’s premium, represents a preferred purchasing opportunity.
The advantage of price protection a private treaty sale cannot be ignored, even by seasoned auction sellers and auction houses themselves. Battling to plug the growing leak in their already less than 50% market share, with neither an investment in additional personnel with expertise and experience in private treaty salesmanship nor in a dedicated space, auctioneers are aggressively advertising their private treaty option. Remember that with Jonathan and Craig now managing the galleries, the Klinkhoff family continues to focus exclusively on private treaty sales now into a third generation. There are also member galleries of our professional association, ADAC, that also have experience and expertise in private treaty sales.
The value of the transparent and fixed price selling platform, one accompanied by low aggregate fees and commissions continues to attract astute sellers of important fine art. The increasing availability of the quantity of high-quality fine art in turn attracts an increasing number of buyers to our venues. The transparency of price published beside each work until it is sold eliminates the first and obvious question asked by any potential buyer of almost anything, that is, “How much?”. One wonders why the price was ever a secret in the first place.
Klinkhoff.ca’s audience has grown considerably. On a single day recently, we entertained phone calls with collectors located in the UK, in the US including New York, New Mexico and Arizona, somewhere in China, and chats with friends and clients in eastern, central and western Canada. And, yes, there were lots of engaging emails, too.
We encourage relationships with art collectors and do our utmost to meet with clients and interested stakeholders ideally in person, alternately to speak over the telephone, FaceTime or Zoom if they wish, or exchanges of emails. With Klinkhoff.ca and the transparency we offer, we strive to be trusted lieutenants in building collections with collectors who do not have the opportunity to come by, chat and see what is on our walls in Montreal and Toronto. Our challenge is to offer to interested parties wherever they are located a comparable art gallery visiting experience to the one they would enjoy coming into the galleries and speaking to Jonathan, Craig or me at whatever platform they prefer.
The transparency of prices permits prospective purchasers to know whether they are financially in the market for any works to their interest. It also allows a prospective purchaser to call or write and say, “I’ll buy it”. At the time of this writing, Craig and Jonathan tell me that when this catalogue is published and distributed, collectors, if they prefer, will have the option of making a purchase, making payment and shipping arrangements seamlessly.
Some of our colleagues, for reasons of financial economy and the economy of human resources, have spurned a development in cyberspace. Maybe some, until now anyway, were simply deniers. Even to them, there is a recognition that the traditional model is clearly not a sustainable one. There is a number who are of an age profile where without a planned succession of their business, sustainability is not their concern and they will close in the short term. In the interim, although arguably sellers may not be served optimally, their businesses will be “fine” until they close. Others who have not invested in a strong internet platform, and who invested instead in participation at art fairs for business development, have found themselves actively looking for hosts to disseminate their gallery sites to a larger audience. There have been even some who we sense have had third party sites liquidate inventory, conceivably to assist with cash flow in their present circumstances.
Well, here we are…We have just sold a specialty collection of 16 paintings by the Charlevoix master artist Claude Le Sauteur, keeping this important group of paintings together, selling it to one astute collector . The collection includes 12 paintings of a series, The Universes of Laughter, and 4 additional paintings by Le Sauteur featuring the iconic image of Victor, originally developed by Vittorio Fiorucci. The collection + four are illustrated in this catalogue.
Slightly less than a year ago now we were in preliminary discussions with the family of Mitzi & Mel Dobrin. The collection is the most important single family collection of Canadian art ever offered for sale. Literally as we introduced The Collection of Mitzi & Mel Dobrin we were obliged to close the doors of our storefront galleries. The majority of this outstanding collection has since been sold. Collectors continue to be rewarded with their acquisitions of genuinely precious and rare works of fine art from this collection. Purchasing opportunities from The Collection of Mel & Mitzi Dobrin are illustrated in this publication and at Klinkhoff.ca.
This catalogue presents an outstanding and vetted selection of fine works of art for your purchase. The highlights are too numerous to mention, but I’ll mention five anyway; Milne’s Tree Pattern, McEwen’s A noir, corset velu des mouches éclatantes, the Rita Letendre, and the two Tom Thomsons are irresistible choices. (I didn’t have room within the 5 to include the Pilot, the Cullen, the Palardy etc....) As you should expect, we encourage your purchases of any which appeal to you. Each is a work of art of fine quality.
For any additional information, to purchase from this catalogue as well as how to participate as consignors to sell through our next presentation, Craig, Jonathan and I invite your inquiries.