Tefaf drops art market report
January 22 2018
Picture: via FT
Surprising news from Melanie Gerlis in the FT that the Tefaf fair in Maastricht will no longer produce its annual art market survey. This was always big news ahead of the fair, and generated significant news coverage. But last year a new author was commissioned to write the report, and the numbers might not have been to everyone's liking, at least from the market's point of view. Gerlis writes:
In truth, their future hung in the balance after 2016 when economist Clare McAndrew, their author since 2008, said she was instead crunching numbers for the Art Basel franchise. Maastricht University professor Rachel Pownall ably took the reins for Tefaf last year but there were differences between her methodology and McAndrew’s, which led to vastly different results. Pownall revised the art market’s 2015 value to $44bn from McAndrew’s $63.8bn and for 2016 had a total of $45bn, while McAndrew had $56.6bn — even the direction of travel was different.
More here.
Tefaf recently signed another lease with the NEC centre in Maastricht, committing the fair to the city for another ten years. Personally, I agreed with those dealers who wanted to see the fair move to a larger, ideally capital city. At least somewhere that was easier to get to. A number of well-established Old Master dealers have decided not to do the fair this year.
