The closing of DeLind Fine Art this spring came as a shock. Housed in a succession of prominent Downtown locations, DeLind aspired to cosmopolitan glamor and sophistication, but closed after four decades with fire sale prices. While a plethora of new galleries have opened in recent years, especially in the Third Ward, the 21st century has also witnessed the demise of Downtown’s Cissie Peltz Gallery and Cynthia Tilson Gallery; suburban venues such as The Gilded Edge Lakeshore Gallery & Frames; and Dominion Gallery in Riverwest, among others. Elaine Erickson Gallery has been absorbed by Timothy Cobb Gallery. Others, such as Blutstein Brondino Fine Art, have withdrawn from brick and mortar to focus on the Worldwide Web.
The comings and goings of galleries raise the question: Who’s buying art? We queried six local gallery owners, including Milwaukee’s oldest galleries, David Barnett and Landmarks, and a pair of newer contenders, Timothy Cobb and Portrait Society.
David Barnett
David Barnett Gallery
1024 E. State St.
Currently we’re seeing a broad range of art buyers, across all age groups and many different economic areas as well. The Millennials are starting to buy art and that’s encouraging. Younger people buy local artists, but the great names as well. They’ve gotten to the point where they recognize the investment value of a $1,500 framed Miro lithograph poster, and they can afford it. Of course not everyone has cash up front, so for many years we’ve allowed people to pay over a number of months with no interest charged. That has really helped. The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in buying and selling art. More and more we’re shipping works to Singapore and all across Asia. To get the word out we pay a monthly fee for a presence on sites like artnet.com and a few years ago we were one of 150 galleries approached by Amazon for their new fine art section.
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Debra Brehmer
Portrait Society Gallery
207 E. Buffalo St., fifth floor
I wanted to reach a diverse range of people and I’ve worked intentionally on doing so. Often galleries only draw certain demographics. Young galleries draw young crowds. Old established galleries draw old established people. I wanted diversity so shows at Portrait Society Gallery don’t pull from a predictable source of art. I’ve found that the best way to bring in a broad range of people is to exhibit a broad range of art. I sell to museums more than many other galleries, perhaps because I’m an art historian and have done curatorial work. I know a number of museum people and try to place things in museums. There are some young collectors buying art, but not very many under 40—unless they are artists. Artists always want to buy art. If the work is lower priced, artists will often purchase one another’s work. Occasionally someone wanders in and buys something without knowing the artist or gallery.
Timothy Cobb
Timothy Cobb Fine Arts
207 E. Buffalo St., first floor
Who buys art? Big people, small people, tall and short people. Choose any ethnicity, creed, color, sexual orientation or job description and you will find art. Someone once told me art should be expensive—I don’t believe that. Buying art is not as important as buying into it—to take part in your artistic heritage in any meaningful way available to you. Owning isn’t everything; the cultivation of artistic awakening is a good start.
Tory Folliard
Tory Folliard Gallery
233 N. Milwaukee St.
The Tory Folliard Gallery specializes in figurative and landscape paintings, especially contemporary magic realism, a style that infuses reality with a liberal dose of fantasy. Magic realism is in vogue among collectors these days and we have works by some of the style’s most prominent representatives—artists like Fred Stonehouse, John Wilde and Tom Uttech. Most of our artists work in traditional media: painting, sculpture, drawing and photography. Typically our customers are recurring because I have a way of contacting them. There are lots of different individuals—young professionals, people who are new to the Third Ward and happen upon the gallery. We do also sell to institutions like museums that are looking to develop their holdings in a particular area. Milwaukee has never had a thriving art market, but fortunately many of the local galleries have different niches and that allows us to survive.
Dean Jensen
Dean Jensen Gallery
759 N. Water St.
In terms of who is buying our art, probably at least half of our clients live outside Wisconsin. We have an Internet presence and these people are looking for a piece by a particular artist and have found our website. Of course we do business with people in Wisconsin too. In terms of what they’re buying, most of it tends to be figurative rather than abstract art: landscapes, still lifes, things like that. The higher-end pieces tend to go to serious collectors outside Wisconsin. They’re not looking for things to decorate their walls. They are very programmatic in how they develop their collections. We’ve seen a lot of galleries closing recently, some of which had been around for quite a long time. Milwaukee is a difficult market for art. Consequently, we travel to art fairs outside of Wisconsin in places like New York and as far as Köln, Germany [aka Cologne, France].
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Mary Manion
Landmarks Gallery
231 N. 76th St.
The traditional storefront art gallery is not the marketplace for people buying art. The art we have sold recently is primarily through Internet sales; faceless buyers whose age and personality are unknown. The question becomes, “What art are they buying?” We see a lot of collectors, people on the prowl looking for breweriana, people collecting movie and travel posters, all purchased through online auctions and “antique malls.” It is rare to see a walk-in customer looking for a landscape or still life. Art purchased at local art fairs is huge and definitely taking business away from the traditional art gallery. The art we have sold from our inventory tends to be impulse purchases; they didn’t come in to buy art but saw something that immediately captured their attention and interest.
