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The dealer today is less flamboyant, though in his own way no less dramatic. The dean of all dealers is the erudite Georges Wildenstein, who has never let the spotlight linger on himself for long. In 1956, the rival M. Knoedler & Co. sued the house of Wildenstein, alleging that someone had been tapping the wires of a Knoedler scout. Eventually the whole matter was dropped, and Wildenstein himself was apparently never involved. He would hardly need to use such tactics, for the one irreplaceable asset of his house is himself. A scholar in his own right, Wildenstein not only possesses an unerring eye, but also a memory that seems to have filed away an image of every first-rate painting that ever existed. Shortly before World War II, he bought an early 18th century portrait for about $30 in Paris because he remembered seeing an engraving of it many years before. It turned out that he was the only man in the city who knew that the portrait was by Watteau.
Handling Living Artists. The big houses such as Wildenstein, Duveen, Knoedler and Rosenberg have the experience and the capital to be able to hang on to a purchase for years, if necessary, until the market is ripe for selling. Smaller dealers, who more often handle the works of living artists, either place artists on a kind of salary in return for a certain number of pictures a year—the favored method in Europe—or take work on consignment and sell it for a straight one-third commission. The percentage is not as exorbitant as it sounds, for the business entails hidden costs. Manhattan's avant-garde Dealer Leo Castelli, for instance, recently arranged a Jasper Johns show in Paris, even though all commissions went to Paris dealers.
"You might say," explains Castelli, "that I acted in enlightened self-interest." Such international shows can make prices go up, and eventually Castelli's profits on Jasper Johns will more than make up for the $15,000 he sacrificed for the Paris show.
New York Dealer Martha Jackson pays Sculptress Louise Nevelson and Spanish Painter Antonio Tapies $20,000 a year in return for U.S. representation of their work. She also has an arrangement with three other galleries in Europe on behalf of a European abstractionist. Each dealer pays him $16,000 for the privilege of maintaining a monopoly on him. His minimum guarantee from the deal: $64,000 a year.
Even the best artists need dealers—and dealers need good art. The dealer always keeps his eye on the obituary columns: the death of a big collector can convulse the market by suddenly making available treasures that have been out of reach for years. The death of an artist can have even more interesting repercussions. Two years ago, Octogenarian Jacques Villon fractured his hip bone, and the rumor quickly spread that he was dying. Within 24 hours, his canvases disappeared from gallery walls all over Paris as dealer after dealer waited for Villon prices to skyrocket. The old man recovered, but as one Right Bank dealer sheepishly says of himself and his colleagues: "We are like a bunch of undertakers, keeping a death watch on the older artists."