Christie’s to Close South Kensington Branch by Colin Gleadell

Just as Christie’s was enjoying its highly successful £231.5 million sales of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art this month, changes were announced that suggest that a programme of acute cost-cutting, involving over 250 job losses, is under way.

In Dubai, its annual October sale has been cut. In Amsterdam, the former Maritime Museum building it has owned since 1973 is to be sold, and a reduced schedule of auctions will be staged elsewhere. The future of its annual sale in Mumbai is in doubt.

The biggest shock to English hearts is the planned closure of its much loved South Kensington branch (CSK) where it has successfully orchestrated its lower value sales in a broad number of categories for over 40 years.

It was CSK’s roving valuation events that inspired the creation of the ever popular Antiques Roadshow. In its heyday, when England’s big houses were all selling their contents, pantechnicons would be parked almost permanently outside CSK. Sometimes it would hold as many as 15 sales in one week. One of the most memorable, if a little macabre, was the disposal of the collection of Britain’s most prolific hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, in 1998.

CSK set the pace in many of these categories – film or ski posters for instance. The very wealthy, real collectors – Sheikh Saud Al Thani, Paul Getty or Lord Thomson for instance – would buy there, as well as all the dealers.

But now the noose has tightened around CSK’s neck. Dealer Julian Hartnoll thinks CSK had become an anachronism because it couldn’t make the step from wholesaler, selling to the trade, to retailer. “Its death was inevitable,” he says.  

The beneficiaries, he says, will be Bonhams, and provincial auctioneers such as Bellmans in Sussex and Mallams in Oxfordshire which Christie’s tend to send lower value goods to anyway. Others could be Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury, Dominic Winter in Gloucestershire for books, Dreweatts of London and Newbury, and 25 Blythe Road and Roseberys in London. It will be interesting to see how it all divvies up.

As Christie’s focused more and more on the potential gain at the top end of the retail market, sales at CSK were run down. Turnover figures fell from £139.4 million in 2012, when it held 126 sales, to just £62.1 million last year when it held only 55 sales. The emphasis now is on building up services in China and Los Angeles, where a new branch is scheduled to open, and investing in the internet, with online only sales replacing the live sales at CSK.

“We are not withdrawing from London; or from different specialist areas – we are adapting for the future,” a spokesman said last week. “We have to look at the broader picture and compare the current art market statistics to the situation 10 years ago and assess that evolution. Ten years ago Europe and New York accounted for around 90 per cent of buyers; today Asia is at 30 per cent and the Middle East and West Coast America are increasing sharply; Europe and New York is now no more than probably 50 per cent.

“Ten years ago Decorative Arts and more generally Classic Arts (antiquities, books and manuscripts, Old Masters and decorative arts) made up around 40 per cent of sales; today 20th and 21st century account for around 70-75 per cent of sales. Ten years ago online sales did not exist; today the landscape has changed and online sale are building every year especially for low value lots and collectable areas.”

While it seems clear that Christie’s emphasis is increasingly high-end and Asia-orientated, the notion that the closures and redundancies are to fund improvements in online activity does not convince everyone. Online sales have risen rapidly, it is true, from $9.5 million in 2011 to $67 million in 2016. But that is still a tiny fraction of worldwide sales.

Christie’s is still to see the pay-off for the $50 million it spent on improving online sales in 2014. Ironically, online activity is still focused on the lower end of the market, the same market in which CSK has excelled. And at those successful evening sales of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art there was not one bid over the internet either at Christie’s or Sotheby’s.

Christie’s appears to be looking over its shoulder at Sotheby’s which is closing in on its leading sales total position, and with only 1,500 staff compared to Christie’s 2,200 worldwide. To a businessman like Francois Pinault, Chairman of the Board of Christie’s, that’s a good enough reason to make cuts.

* This article first appeared on The Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/art/christies-close-south-kensington-branch/