Auction houses beware: art dealers are back
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In Australia, since the late 1980s auction houses have steadily increased their hold on the secondary art market with dealers becoming a shrinking pool. As auction houses transformed from wholesalers to retailers of art, with robust marketing campaigns, full-colour catalogues and auctions as swish social events, dealers strained to compete. Dealers of old such as Joseph Brown, Eva Breuer, Lauraine Diggins and Win Schubert, were powerful forces in the secondary art market, and while some from that era live on, Denis Savill and Nevin Hurst to name two, a younger generation is not racing to fill their shoes. Melbourne dealer D’Lan Davidson is one exception, vigorously promoting Australian Aboriginal art locally and on the world stage. The rebadged Smith & Singer has reinvented itself as an art dealership, conducting private sales and exhibitions as well as public auctions, so perhaps it qualifies too.
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