On a recent sunny weekend, in a red-brick building on West Fulton Street, a few blocks past Halsted and the L. Isaacson & Stein Fish House, past the poultry purveyors, the egg company and the gelato-maker, 100-plus people battled for Breuers and Bertoias, Eames and Arps.
There were no fisticuffs, though. Not with this crowd, dressed as they were in America’s warm weather uniform of khakis and sandals. They toted Starbucks, Kate Spade satchels and cell phones. They had come from New York and New Mexico, Chicago’s northern suburbs and the city’s heart. Most clutched white cards printed with large black numbers.
It was a crowd quite different than the weekday world of West Fulton Street, a stretch dedicated to the business of food. On this particular June weekend, those who entered the building at 1140 W. Fulton St. were in the market for 20th Century furniture, design and fine art.
Their destination: A Wright auction of Modern design. It is one of six held annually by Richard Wright who, with his wife, Julie, owns the auction house that bears his name.
For those who participated in the Wright auction, as well as its two weeks of previews, it was a mix of high-stakes shopping, people watching, a history lesson and lively theater.
And it was as welcoming to those who know their Oldenburgs from their Rauschenbergs as it was to the live-auction virgins sorting out such auction-ese as “lots,” “reserves” and “condition reports.”
Why would anyone but a furniture or fine arts dealer, a museum or a high-stakes bidder venture into the world of live auctions? Because, veterans say, they are a good place to shop, to get up close and personal with items and, particularly for novice collectors, to jump-start their collections. It’s that ability to check out the items first hand that is crucial to becoming a savvy collector.
“For people who want to collect, I think it’s a great place. They can see the best pieces, and if you’re starting a collection, that’s a good place to begin,” says Paul Johnson, a buyer for the Modern-design stores Las Venus in New York, who flew in for the Wright auction and departed with five pieces–including a sculpture for himself.
It’s also the next logical step for those who already shop online auctions, are hooked on TV antiques shows, bid on chef-cooked dinners at charity bashes and eagerly gobble up gossip on the latest celebrity memorabilia sales.
In fact, it is all those elements that have contributed to the interest in live auctions, says Terry Dunning, when contacted a few days later. Dunning’s family has been in the auction business for 100-plus years. “Quite honestly, a lot of people have been to charity auctions now, and they see this isn’t quite as intimidating as they thought it was,” he says.
“There are a couple of key things that differentiate the types of auctions,” explains Wright, which runs a reserved auction–that is, there is a minimum price. “An unreserved auction means they are absolutely going to sell the piece for whatever it brings. . . . Farm auctions tend to be unreserved. The household items are dragged right out of the house, and you may get something for $1. And that’s great. And that’s the wild end of the auction world.” But it’s not the only one. Chicago offers a range of live auctions, with a number of houses and galleries holding them on a regular basis. Direct Auction Galleries on north Western Avenue, for example, holds sales every two weeks. Susanin’s holds a live auction every Sunday in The Merchandise Mart. At the John Toomey Gallery in Oak Park, Treadway/Toomey Auctions are held four to six times a year. And on West Webster Avenue, Milne and Klein Auctions are held monthly.
(Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Butterfield’s no longer hold live events here but still have offices in town.)
Each auction offers its own style, selection of merchandise. And, quite often, its own share of drama and excitement as bidding ratchets up on much-coveted pieces.
By the time auctioneer Richard Wright had issued his final shout of “sold” Sunday afternoon, some $1.1 million worth of items–including George Nakashima tables, a couple Eliel Saarinen cabinets plus lithographs by Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder–had been sold.
Such big numbers shouldn’t frighten off those who are thinking of giving live auctions a try. Several hundred dollars was all that was needed for vases by Italian artists Guido Gambone and Marcelo Fantoni, for example.
In fact the accessibility–price and availability–of 20th Century design is why Wright, 38, got into the business 16 years ago, gathering auction experience at galleries and auction houses along the way and conducting his first at Fulton Street two years ago.
So what do you need to get into play? A willingness to do a little research, an understanding of your financial limits and a little information on how such auctions work. A snapshot of the recent Wright auction–the preview, the day of the sale, the post sale–should be a good step to getting started.
Act I: The Previews
For two weeks before the Sunday auction, Richard Wright and his team opened two floors for previews–an opportunity for potential buyers and interested browsers to inspect almost 500 items.
“The No. 1 rule is to look at the items before you bid on them,” says Wright. “The biggest mistake you can make is sitting in the audience and thinking something is going cheap and raising your hand and buying it, then realizing why it went cheap. I make it a firm rule never to buy until I’ve looked at it.”
On the Saturday before the sale, with the sun beaming through the tall windows into the wood-beamed loft, people did just that. They ran their hands along the surface of a Nakashima black walnut and rosewood dining table and peered closely at the finish on a folding screen by Charles and Ray Eames.
It was the Nakashima table that drew Chicagoan Gail Thompson, graphic designer, to the Wright Web site (www.wright20.com), the preview and auction.
“I printed out what I wanted to see, but it was important to come here to actually see the real thing,” says Thompson, who last attended a live auction–a fundraiser–some 30 years ago. “There is stuff that looks OK in the picture but actually seeing the actual piece was more powerful.”
And then there was the dreamed-of Nakashima. “You’re never going to be that close to these pieces again as when you’re previewing them,” she says. Most previewers were armed with the auction’s glossy catalog, a more than 200-page volume that details each of the items (or lots) that would be up for bid.
“For every line in the book, we identify the designer–if it’s known–the item, the country where it was made, the materials in the piece, the dimensions, a little bit of history or pertinent facts about that piece and then the estimated price,” says Wright. “What’s not in the book and is a key element, but we like to handle outside the catalog is the condition.”
That, says New York buyer Johnson, is why attending a preview is important. “Get what you want but make sure [you get] all full condition reports. Is the piece still in production? How rare is the piece?” he says, suggesting you also check the scale as well as variations of a design.
Use the preview to get questions answered about auctions and items, says Steve Baska of the National Auctioneers Association in Overland Park, Kan., a few days later. “Look at the auction catalog. It will help explain how to bid, what the terms are [as well as] procedures in general. How to pay the money. What you have to do to be a bidder,” he says. “[Auction-goers] should talk to the auctioneer or the staff beforehand if they have any questions about how to bid, how to find out about individual items. … If you know that you want to buy something at an auction, go on the Internet beforehand and see what similar things look like and are valued at.”
Attending a live auction, and its preview, has some advantages over online auctions, according to Chicagoan Joe Kunkel, a dealer and collector of Modern furniture and decorative arts whose business, Jetset, has a booth at the Broadway Antique Market.
“An auction in online format should, in theory, be the same, but the difference is that you’re able to see the item in person [at a live auction] and you know who you’re buying it from,” says Kunkel. Sometimes online items are misattributed, sometimes you don’t have any recourse if there are problems. “If you’re bidding at a live auction, you draw upon the reputation of the dealer and you have a local person to deal with.”
Says Dunning, “I’ve always told people to check the reputation of the auction firm [and then] make sure they go to a viewing period ahead of the auction and if there’s a catalog, check the catalog.”
Act II: The Auction
Just before noon Sunday, people were registering for the auction and picking up their numbered bidding cards.
Furniture, chests and lamps that had once dominated the room had been moved to the edges. In the center, dozens of black chairs had been lined up facing the front of the room. Along one wall, a half-dozen Wright employees sat at a long table, black phones lined up in front of them. They would handle customers making phone bids.
“Attend the auction early. Try to get a feel for the rhythm of the auctioneer and the amount of action that’s occurring in the room,” says Wright. “To me, the role of the auctioneer is to help set the market value of an item on that day. My role is to articulate that to the buyers.”
Some bidders already had settled into chairs, their coffee and bottled water ready. Others had come with the Sunday paper and books, the better to pass the time when a string of lots they may have no interest in came up for bid. There is no dress code.
Up front, Wright was at the podium. A large plasma screen set up behind him would display lot numbers and images of items up for bidding.
“Some of them are here to watch. Some are here to buy if they can get a bargain. Some fly in for it. If it’s a nice summer day, a lot of people will choose to phone bid,” says Wright of his audience. “There are three groups of people bidding: There are people who bid absentee where they leave me the amount that they want me to bid for them. So I have a book in front of me with that. And then I have the phone bidders and then I have the audience.”
As for actually spending your money: “I think in the beginning, it’s very good to go into it with a specific amount you want to bid,” says Wright. “It’s very easy to get caught up in the bidding. It relieves you of one mental worry if you can have a price in mind.”
Indeed, once Wright begins the auction, that’s apparent as two folding screens by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller come up for bid.
“And now, Lot 105,” says Wright, as an ash plywood and canvas folding screen, red with aniline dye, and a reserve of $7,000 to $9,000 makes its Power Point appearance.
“Do I have $7,000?” Wright asks, spotting a bidder, then intoning, “7-5. Do I have 7-5? I have 7-5. Do I have 8?”
Within seconds, the piece has zoomed to $14,000.
“I have $14,000. Fair warning,” says Wright, taking a breath. “Sold for $14,000.”
In mere minutes, another Charles and Ray Eames folding screen, a blond, half-sized version–that began with $5,000 to $7,000 reserves–is sold for $22,000.
A little while later, Lot 218 comes up. It is the Nakashima dining table that Thompson pined for. “I came to see the walnut table and somehow I kept thinking, `Oh, maybe it will only go for a few thousand.’ When its bidding started at $14,000, I knew it wasn’t for me,” says Thompson, who did not buy the table (which sold for $30,000). “But I was dreaming. It was beautiful.”
The numbers, the prices, the “fair warning” and “sold” cries continue through the afternoon as Wright watches the hands flung in the air by those manning the phone banks, the white numbered cards held aloft by buyers and the faces of the crowd.
“Don’t blink, nod, itch your nose, wave to friends,” says Wright. “It usually happens once every sale. Someone will be waving to their friend who just walked in. [But] people should not be afraid of auctions.
Indeed, Wright’s calling–his reiteration of numbers, etc.–helps to make sure of that.
Act III: The Finale
With the final shout of “sold” on the auction’s last item clocking in at about 6:30 p.m., Wright and his team begin the auction’s next phase.
“The night of the auction, we post the results of the auction on the Web site,” says Wright. “I always [say] the auction is kind of a high and Monday is the morning after. You’re dealing with people who want their invoices faxed to them and they want their pieces Fed Exed.”
A third party handles shipping items, which begins in earnest on Monday. As the staff is busy moving pieces out, new pieces are coming in to be readied–photographed for the catalog, researched, etc.–for the next auction, which will be held Sept. 29.
And Wright is kept busy dealing with sellers. “No matter how good your auction is, there are always people who are delighted and people who are disappointed.”
Wright was happy. The Isamu Noguchi rocking stool, estimated at $9,000 to $12,000, brought $22,000. And “The top one of the auction was the Frank Lloyd Wright chair. It sold for $42,000.”
“Every sale is months of work culminating in just one moment and then it just all goes back out again,” says Wright, to museums, private collections, people’s homes and dealer inventories. “What’s always interesting to me is when I go to museums and I’ll see items that I directly sold or that I handled and it’s so rarefied that I can’t touch them.”
