Historically, art prices tend to follow the housing market, which would indicate that the past three years should have been disastrous for the art market.

Unfortunately for abstract theories, auction records for the past year or so, especially on Impressionists, Warhol, and mid-20th century decorative arts, have seen a resounding jump in prices, despite the fact that the housing market is still in the doldrums.

The batch of art and antique fairs in Palm Beach County over the next month should help quantify whether that will continue to be the case.

“Top quality pieces have been fetching large records,” says Lee Ann Lester. She and her husband, David, run International Fine Art Expositions, which is promoting Art Palm Beach (today-Monday), and the American International Fine Art Fair (Feb. 5-13), just as they have for the past 15 years.

“We had recessions in 1987 and 1991, but those were 11-month recessions. This has been … a little prolonged.”

Lester says that the best years for the Art Fair were 1999 through 2001. “9/11 put a chill on the art market, as it did everything else,” says Lester. In those boom years, “The fairs were filled, we had a waiting list, and the exhibitors were world class,” Lester sighs.

It’s not what it used to be, but it’s better than it was. Zita Bell, who has produced the rival Palm Beach Winter Antiques Show at the Crowne Plaza for decades, which also runs today-Sunday, says that, “Dixie Highway antique dealers are telling me that people are shopping again, people are furnishing homes again. Is everything perfect? No. But it’s much, much better.”

Bell says that the art economy is “partly a state of mind. People have been thinking differently — not as impulsive in their buying. In my experience, it’s affecting dealers more than it is sales; dealers are reluctant to travel. I just had a dealer call me from London who said last year was not good, and he was going to wait a year until he tried again.”

Bell also says the difference between her show and the Lesters’ is the difference between “a boutique and a large department store. Mine is smaller, more comfortable, more personal. I think the Lesters’ show is more museum quality; I think I’m hitting more of an individual collector and designer and the general public. The difference is in size and presentation.”

Whatever the economy, there is always a slow but steady stream of major pieces coming onto the market. Death, divorce and the dissolving of companies all contribute to the flow.

Contributing to the return of rising prices are what Lester refers to as “a much larger global market. Go back 20 years, and the global market didn’t exist to this extent. There are the Asians and the Russians, but there also are Indian billionaires buying, and Middle Eastern museums trying to put together world class collections.”

At the same time, there’s an upsurge in demand for emerging artists — roughly categorized in the $2,000-$25,000 range — among younger collectors. “When we started these fairs years ago,” says Lester, “you could name the contemporary fairs on one hand. Now, there’s five or six a month: San Diego, Dallas, small fairs everywhere. There’s also been a trend of galleries moving toward smaller retail centers, because of rents.”

Lester mentions a dealer who’s located at 57th and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, who still attends six fairs a year, just to meet new collectors. “It used to be the pattern that collectors would come to New York, but the one thing that collectors have in common today is scarcity of time. So they can go to Chelsea and in three buildings see 30 or 40 galleries. I would say that fewer collectors are visiting galleries in general.”

For the Lesters, the Palm Beach fairs offer access to major American as well as European collectors. “Both shows focus on a very astute collector market, as well as someone who might never have attended the fair. There’s antiques, rare books, photographs, antiquities, ceramic glass as well as Renoirs.

“It’s a more relaxed atmosphere than back home or New York, and it affords the dealer the opportunity to spend significant time with the collector.”

IF YOU GO
ART PALM BEACH
Featuring 75 art dealers/galleries
Today-Monday
Palm Beach County Convention Center, West Palm Beach.
Fair hours: Today-Sunday, noon to 7 p.m.; and Monday, noon to 6 p.m.
Information: artpalmbeach.com