Ever since Bill Gates plunked down a record US$30.8 million for Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Hammer in 1994, the art world has been courting the California- and Seattle-based collectors who made their millions in the computer industry. But as auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's are fast learning, the cybermoguls' buying patterns are not easy to predict.
Despite their taste for modernism and impressionism, for example, none of them purchased at the 6-7 May auctions of modern and contemporary art in New York. And it's uncertain whether they will buy at the remaining auctions, lasting through 14 May.
"No computer baron is a major player in the auction room," says Bruce Wolman, editor in chief of Art & Auction magazine. "They simply are not used to attending auctions, or doubt their expertise in such an arena. After all, auctions are an older, East Coast cultural tradition than the primarily West Coast digital cultural traditions that are just being established now."
It's not that the cybermoguls are shy of spending. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has steadily acquired holdings of paintings by modern and impressionist masters such as Matisse, Monet, and Picasso. Ex-president of Microsoft Jon Shirley and his wife, Mary, have amassed acquisitions including a David Smith steel sculpture, bought for $3.4 million, and a Mark Rothko canvas, purchased in late 1996 for an estimated $2 million, a deal facilitated by New York's C & M Arts. Beyond MS, Santa Monica's Peter and Eileen Norton, of the Peter Norton Computing Inc. computer applications firm, occupy a spot on Art News' most recent lists of the top 25 collectors in the United States and the top 200 collectors in the world.
The auction houses just have to figure out how best to cater to these collecting newbies. On 30 May, Christie's will open its $2 million-plus "high tech" West Coast headquarters in Beverly Hills, Christie's second North American auction center, featuring state-of-the-art video and lighting technology for the presentation of auction items, even via remote.
"Seattle is definitely a buying market," says Christina Lockwood, the Seattle representative for Christie's, who has observed the evolution of the Pacific Northwest's collecting and arts community for 27 years. "For any auction house, its strength depends on where its various outposts are located. It needs to be present in such buying markets, where members of the community have a clear record of purchasing more than they are consigning items for sale," Lockwood says.
Last month, Christie's launched a new West Coast newsletter, outlining scheduled art education events and client services available in San Francisco and other major cities. And last year, Christie's opened an office in Seattle.
Similarly, Sotheby's made available a Seattle representative, Jeannie Johnston, to act as a client liaison in 1995. Subsequently, Sotheby's has held Seattle events such as a mock auction to cultivate interest in collecting art at auction, presumably among the city's new cyber rich.
Wolmer points out that the Microsoft moguls might be collecting art for reasons beyond the most obvious fact that they can afford it. "If these waves in collecting are more than episodic, this new generation of industrialists might follow their predecessors, like J.P. Morgan, as major cultural benefactors, and 'validate' their social power."
Like others in the art auction sphere, Wolmer questions how well those accustomed to pixels and computer screens identify with paint and canvas.
One answer might be found in Charles Simonyi, chief Microsoft software architect, who recently made a $2.8 million purchase of Roy Lichtenstein's "KissV" from high-power, bi-coastal art dealer Larry Gagosian. Simonyi is establishing himself as a serious collector of modern artists Lichtenstein and Victor Vasarely, whom he feels share an aesthetic that particularly suits connoisseurs of the digital.
"When in the late '60s I started to work with computers, I was more attracted to Vasarely and Lichtenstein," says Simonyi. "Looking back, I explain this by the term 'digital premonition,' which simply means that I think the artists - subconsciously, to be sure - predicted the information age and digital convergence by choosing forms and colors which are discrete, digital in nature."
But not all cybermoguls are seeking the roots of digitalia. Christie's and Sotheby's are still hoping that the cybermoguls will buy modernists and impressionists in the upcoming New York auctions.
