Understanding an investment of passion

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. But what about art? Is the beauty of its appeal universal, is it in the simple aesthetics of the piece, or is it locked into some social coding expressed in brushstrokes and splashed colour? Or is it in the dollar tag attached to a painting, the appreciating value of a rare investment?

Over the centuries, it has been coveted and despised. It has been stolen by the Nazis, the Soviets and other conquering armies. Thieves have walked off with priceless masterpieces under the noses of gallery guards, some never to be found again. It has elicited heated controversies, given rise to peculiar “schools”, caused tragic suicides, generated timeless myths, won the hearts of lovers, and enthralled millions. It has brought both great wealth and excruciating poverty.

In 2010, the global art market was valued at an estimated US$60 (R476.9) billion and growing, or so stated a report commissioned by The European Fine Art Foundation, called “The Global Art Market in 2010: Crisis and Recovery”. That was up 52% from the slump in 2009 caused by the recession.

So just what exactly is this multidimensional, often misunderstood and equally often overrated thing called art?

It is pure passion. At least, that is what two of South Africa’s leading art dealers will tell you. They are David Tripp and Charles Shields, co-owners of one of South Africa’s most successful art galleries, the Everard Read in Cape Town.

While running this gallery may be a labour of love for them, and while their gallery may be a successful child of the much older Everard Read Johannesburg established in 1913 by the man of the same name, it has certainly not always been an easy ride.

The global art market experienced an unprecedented growth bubble in 2007. Then in September 2008 came the crash as the recession tightened its ugly grip on the world. In 2009, that which is labelled as “luxury spending” contracted dramatically in most countries. Many art dealers became casualties; some old and established galleries closed their doors for good; corporate collections were put on hold or sold off; and cash-strapped private collectors tried to flog their Warhol’s and Monet’s, or their Pierneef’s and Stern’s.

But the art market survived, and in 2010 recovery and vigorous new growth set in. At the end of 2010, Sotheby’s announced the second best ever – after 2007 – results in its 267-year history, with sales of US$4.8bn (R38.2bn). Christie’s performed the same, notching up US$301.683m (R2.4bn) in sales in a single evening.

And true to the shift in global economic polarity from West to East, China has become the world leader in the fine art market with sales of US$3bn (R23.8bn) in 2010, overtaking both the United States and Britain.

Apart from the Chinese phenomenon, the art scene in South Africa pretty much emulated the global market.

The Everard, both in Johannesburg and Cape Town, was perhaps fortunate to weather the storm better than most. Local conditions remain tough, however.

When Tripp and Shields first came to Cape Town to set up shop back in 1996, people told them they were mad, that they would never make it in Cape Town and would be back in Johannesburg within two months.

“Someone even told me the story that if a Capetonian gets his wallet out, he has to blow the dust off to get his credit card out,” recalls Tripp, with the self-satisfied chuckle of one who has overcome the odds and proven the pessimists wrong.

But the decision to go south nevertheless haunted him on the way down to Cape Town. He had left a highly paid job with entrepreneur Bill Venter’s international electronics company to start the gallery with Shields, whose future wife was pregnant.

“I was driving down thinking, what the hell have I done? I had never before sold anything, had never been in sales. It was a long drive through the Karoo.”

But if Tripp and Shields felt a little apprehensive, they arrived in Cape Town both with solid groundings in the world of fine art, which would see them through. It was based on their mutual love and passion for art, architecture, and music, among other things, and years of observation and accumulated knowledge about the art world, most of it self-taught.

“I don’t think any degree by any university makes a dealer or a gallerist. What’s required, you learn in the trade,” remarks Tripp.

Shields had almost grown up in the Johannesburg gallery, the legendary Everard Read having been his grandmother’s second husband. By the age of 10, he was working weekends in the gallery, stuffing invitations to exhibitions into envelopes.

Yet, says Shields, he never anticipated joining the gallery. After compulsory military service, followed by “a world-record” three months at the University of Cape Town and a stint of overseas travelling with his future wife, he returned to South Africa, making candles and metal light fittings before working for the late David Rattray, the famous historian and war-sites tour guide.

All this time, Mark Read had been watching Shields from afar.

“I was a dope-smoking – am I allowed to say that? – anti-establishment rubbish. He must have decided that despite appearances, I was actually quite a useful human being, and he wanted someone to specialise in emerging black artists, so I went to work at the gallery,”
Shields relates.

I ask him how he had met Tripp and, as if on cue, they answer in unison. They remind one of a long and comfortably married couple, frequently interrupting each other, finishing the other’s sentences. They have been together for over 15 years, and there is a great measure of obvious mutual respect and trust.

Despite having had a passion for art from an early age, Tripp almost came into the art business by chance. Working for Venter, the founder of electronics and telecommunications group, Altron, he decorated his new office himself – naturally putting some of his own art pieces on the walls.

“I had six little Dali drawings, a Severino Braccialarghe, a Hockney print and a large abstract version of a Vermeer,” he remembers.

One day Venter came looking for Tripp, but found an empty office. Annoyed, Venter left him a message: “Nice office and good art. See me.”

The result was that, added to his many varied duties in the group, Tripp was mandated to buy art for the entire Altron group and all its companies, as well as for the Venter family’s personal collections.

“In the process, I became a good customer at Everard Read in Johannesburg, and that is how I met Charles,” he recalls.

When the Reads decided to branch out to Cape Town, they called Tripp and made him a job offer.

“I said to Mark I am not coming to work for you and your father, I can’t. I work for a public company that’s run by a family – that’s crazy enough, but a private company run by a family is even worse. I said I will come only if I could have equity,” recalls Tripp.

Everard refused: no non-family member had ever owned a stake of their business. But Mark spoke to the old man and, a few days later, Tripp was on board and en route to Cape Town.

Meanwhile, Shields had resigned from the family business, but before he could leave, his future wife found out she was pregnant. A delighted Mark said, “Good, now you cannot resign, can you!” An offer was made to Shields to join Tripp in Cape Town.

Off they went to Cape Town in 1996 with a pickup truck, two containers of paintings and a lease for 100 square metres in the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. Despite much pessimism everywhere about their chances of success and several false starts, they finally got the right mix of clients and artists together – and prospered.

The doyen of Cape Town art dealers, Louis Schachat, who shares their current premises, told them they had arrived at the right moment, as the art market in Cape Town had just started opening up.

Within three years, the little gallery made enough money for them to buy their own two-storey building up the road at the entrance to the Waterfront.

Among their regular artists were some very good Scottish painters who had come to them courtesy of Sir Donald Davidson, the retired former head of the Glasgow School of Fine Art. They exhibited world-renowned painters such as Jack Vitriano and Stephen Conroy. Locally, they signed up many of South Africa’s best talent, artists such as Vusi Khumalo, Velaphi Mzimba, Sasha Hartslief, John Meyer and the sculptor Dylan Lewis.

“We have worked with Dylan Lewis from his very first exhibition. He’s been a phenomenal success. Even an established artist like John Meyer – the growth in his work has been phenomenal,” says Tripp.

But who buys a John Meyer for R800 000? “The private individual. He’s a lover of art and he probably has more than one John Meyer.

“The corporate market is minuscule. The best we have done out of the corporate market in the last 10 years is one or two offices. There is no big corporate art market anymore.”

These days, money tied up in art collections is frowned upon by shareholders and analysts.

Tripp and Shields say that with the recession in 2008, all the local dealers and galleries saw their sales plunging by some 30%. The sales returned a year later, yet currently they are still experiencing the most difficult trading conditions in 15 years.

Over the years, the profile of their buyers has changed. Sales to foreign buyers went up and down the graph. But it was South Africans, particularly Capetonians, who carried them. “This is a Cape Town business, built on Cape Town. The export sales were just a cherry on the top.”

Is art an investment, I ask them. “It is a compulsion that lasts your whole life,” Shields answers. “It is an investment but not a fiscal device,” adds Tripp.

“If a real art lover was forced to take something off the wall to sell, you can be sure the economy would be in a bad way and he wouldn’t realise its true potential. Sold slowly into the right market, you can, however, show phenomenal returns.”

The investment value is perhaps most evident in their own story: the Cape Town gallery will soon be holding its 15th anniversary exhibition, while the Johannesburg gallery turns a magnificent 100 years this year.

Stef Terblanche