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The clearing house of dreams - art market transactions, planned and unplanned
The International Family Offices Journal
Vol. 5 - Iss. 4 pp. 32–36
Jun 2021
Given the prevalence of art collections by wealthy families there are numerous lessons and fascinating stories from the art world, as shown in the latest contribution from Ronald Varney in "The clearing house of dreams - art market transactions, planned and unplanned". He begins with a characterisation of the global art market as "gaudy and theatrical, mystifying and intimidating, bursting with big prices and pumped-up prophesies of what will be the 'next hot trend'". When family collections are involved, he cautions that even when they are "savvy and well-advised in matters of art market transactions - they have made a plan, say, for distributing art within the family, making donations to a museum, or even starting their own private foundation or museum in order to keep the collection intact for future generations" - surprises can happen. And so his stories begin.