The Personal Touch – LAPADA’s View – lapada.org

Submitted on 2011/08/15 at 3:45 pm

Dear Elliot

I thought this was a very worthwhile report. The news headlines do not reflect the reality that art and antiques dealers today account for 51% of global art world sales with over 1.4 million employed. This important group of dealers consists largely of discreet low profile individuals and small businesses preferring to focus on finding great art to match with the right client rather than publishing high flying sales prices.

The demographic for dealers is opposite to that for retailers in general; dealers tend to be highly educated, full time with an age demographic of 50 years as opposed to retailers in general who have lower education levels, are generally part-time with an age demographic under 25 years. The longevity of businesses was also impressive on average 30 years, with many dealers being highly specialised. The market was seen to be events driven, where one room of ‘excitement’ such as a Fair competes with the energy of an auction. Also collaborations such as Master Paintings week are becoming more prevalent where the salerooms and dealers jointly promote themselves, the responses from the collectors’ survey perceived the auction/ dealer divide in the market to be internal.

If you are a LAPADA member and would like a copy of this report, please contact us on 0207 823 3511 or lapada@lapada.org .