July 20, 2008
Park West Gallery art auctions on cruise ships
When I talked to the 2 Park West people on the Norwegian Pearl, they told me that Park West Gallery is the biggest art dealer in the world and they got that huge by bringing art to the people. Park West Gallery does art auctions on Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Norwegian, Carnival, Disney, Holland America, Regent and Oceania.
This article talks about some problems people have had with Park West. The complaints seem to focus on some Dali prints and pricing.
First, some experts claim that Park West is selling forged Dali prints. When I was looking at the work on the NCL Pearl, the Park West guy told me that the biggest issue with Dali was authenticity because some paper that Dali had signed but not yet used was stolen or something.
I'll save that discussion for people who know art. I can't determine if a work is authentic or not but I did trust that Park West was selling me authentic works. Hopefully my trust was not misplaced but then again I'm not an art newb spending $78,000 without getting the piece independently authenticated. And if Park West really is selling forged works, I guess the courts will make them pay.
The other complaint was about the price. Here's one example:
It was only after Maldonado landed back in California that he did some research on his purchases. Including the buyer's premium, he had paid $24,265 for a 1964 "Clown" print by Picasso. He found that Sotheby's had sold the exact same print (also numbered 132 of 200) in London for about $6,150 in 2004.I don't have much to say about the price except that it is the buyer's responsibility to shop around if they want to get the best possible deal. It took me about 2 minutes to find the print in question selling for $17,500. Now I know not to spend $26,000 on it.
I would say the more confusing part is the "also numbered 132/200" - there shouldn't be 2 prints with the same number so assuming there is no forgery, we're talking about the same exact print. The guys on our Park West ship actually talked about how Park West had started "protecting the market" by buying Picasso prints when Sotheby's auctions didn't reach what Park West thought the piece was worth.
Now what they described sounded more like cornering the market than protecting it but whatever. It seems that Park West bought the piece for $6,000 and sold it for $26,000. Now if Park West had an opening bid of $26,000 shame on them (since the piece seems to be available for $17,500 although it may not have been back when all this happened). But if this buyer got into a bidding war or whatever and overpaid because he didn't know what he was doing it's another story.
I think I'm a decent example. Before bidding in the auction I went online (surely you remember me complaining about the internet access) and looked up Marcel Mouly. I got an average price range for his prints $600 - $5,000. I'm no art expert and I can't tell which pieces are worth more so I figured I'd try to stick on the low end presuming I found one I liked.
Well I am about to go eat dinner so I'll talk more about my experience with Park West later. I will ask Park West and NCL for comments. I may also wait for the pieces I bought to arrive as they are being shipped to Seoul (6-8 weeks I'm told).
And of course I'd like to hear your experiences with Park West and with buying art on cruise ships in general.
Posted by James Trotta at July 20, 2008 8:16 AM | TrackBack
I "won" a print on a Celebrity Cruise from Park West. It was supposed to be valued at $500.00. I had to pay $35.00 to have it shipped to our home. But since then we have seen three or four of the same prints on Ebay selling for less than the $35.00 it costs to ship the print. I think buying art on a cruise can be very risky. But I am very uninformed as art goes. I do know that the pressure is on after the art is purchased to buy the frame and matting for the piece and that is very expensive. Those extras would also make shipping much more expensive. I was not impressed. But many people do buy "art" on cruise ships and some go on a certain cruise just for the art. Whatever floats their boat.
Posted by: SUSAN WILSON at July 22, 2008 11:04 PMI'm sure some of it has to do with luck when dealing with Park West employees on the cruise. For example, the guy I spoke to suggested I not have Park West do the framing because it would make shipping to Seoul a lot more expensive.
But they did misrepresent how expensive shipping to Korea would be. When I spoke to them in person they said it was cheap but when I read the back of my auction card I saw that a canister to Asia was $125 for 1-5 unframed prints. If you buy one print for $200, $125 shipping is gonna seem pretty expensive... A framed print cost $200 to ship to Seoul.
Also, one guy recommended we not buy a damaged piece. The other suggested buying it and Park West would refurbish it. Even if we had only talked to the guy who said to buy it, I like to think I have enough common sense not to buy damaged art. But certainly if I had bought it I wouldn't have felt so good afterwards and my review of Park West might have been a lot more negative.
Posted by: James Trotta at July 23, 2008 4:37 AMI read your article with guarded interest. There is so much negative information on the internet when referring to Park West. The only concern I had was the reference to $17,500 for the Picasso, when I clicked the link, the price on the artwork is $25,000. Now the price could have gone up since you posted, art prices do fluctuate. I have purchased from Park West, their gallery staff are very willing to extend themselves to find the perfect piece. Wentworth’s is another gallery with wonderful staff to work with. I am not an art expert either, that’s why I prefer work with a reputable gallery.
Posted by: Jon at October 9, 2008 3:19 AM