Bernard Goldberg at home with a favorite Guy Pene du Bois painting

Link to Bloomberg story here.

By Lindsay Pollock

March 4 (Bloomberg) — New York art dealer Bernard Goldberg, 77, reckoned the time had come for a graceful and reasonably lucrative exit from the business.

After 12 years of dealing in high-end American art, Goldberg will close his Madison Avenue gallery and sell its entire inventory of 175 artworks and furnishings at New York auctions hosted by Christie’s International this year. The sale is estimated to fetch as much as $10 million.

Goldberg says his latest move is prompted by his age, not art-market volatility.

“Right now, I feel the art market is getting better and better,” said Goldberg in an interview last week in his Fifth Avenue apartment. “This is a good time to sell.”

With the art market still shaky, Goldberg won’t be scoring the sort of coup he did in 1998, when he pulled out of the property market to cash in on high prices. He says he sold his five Manhattan boutique hotels to Credit Suisse First Boston for $139 million.

Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s, which together control more than two-thirds of the art auction market, said the global credit crisis triggered by Lehman Brother Holdings Inc.’s Sept. 2008 collapse caused sales last year to fall by a fifth. Christie’s Chief Executive Edward Dolman said he expects the market to rebound this year.

Born in the Bronx to an accountant father, Goldberg went to the private Horace Mann high school and later became a lawyer. Like many dealers, Goldberg entered the art business as a collector. He and his late wife, Monica Dennis Goldberg, bought a somber George Bellows in 1968 using $4,000 they had received as wedding gifts. The year he sold his New York properties, he opened his Upper East Side gallery and began selling early 20th- century American art.

Six Auctions

Goldberg’s works will be offered in six separate auctions during Christie’s spring and fall sales. Goldberg, who has two daughters and funds a program in Israel to train women as advocates in rabbinical courts, didn’t say how he will spend the sales proceeds.

Among Christie’s projected top lots is a 2-foot-tall graceful Jacques Lipchitz 1914 cubist “Spanish Dancer” sculpture, expected to fetch between $400,000 and $600,000. Goldberg had been retailing the bronze for $850,000 at the gallery. “Is it going to bother me if it sells for $400,000? Absolutely.” said Goldberg. “There are things I paid top dollar for and will not get those prices today.”

Goldberg’s landscape of Central Park by American Impressionist Frederick Carl Frieseke will be sold Sept. 28. Goldberg paid $40,000. Christie’s estimate: $15,000 to $25,000.

Goldberg is best known for selling American art dating from 1900 to 1950, and these works span a range of styles, from Ashcan to Modernism. The auctions will include everything in his gallery, even those Goldberg says he’s tempted to keep.

Parting With Hartley

“How can I bear to part with the Hartley?” he said of a 1935-1936 red Marsden Hartley canvas, “Roses for Seagulls that Lost Their Way,” that’s expected to fetch $500,000. Edward Steichen’s atmospheric 1907 “Moonlit Landscape” will also be offered for a top estimate of $500,000. A group of early 20th- century decorative arts are also up for grabs, including an architectural 1904 Gustav Stickley chandelier, estimated to sell for as much as $80,000. The auctions include 70 American paintings and sculptures, to be offered May 20.

“We were able to take the best of the property — everything that he had to offer,” said Eric Widing, head of Christie’s American painting department. “He is making a grand bow before he exits the dealer stage.”

His personal collection isn’t for sale and will continue to adorn the walls of his Fifth Avenue apartment and East Hampton home. An early Edward Hopper portrait above the bed will stay. And his wedding gift, the Bellows, will remain in the living room.