Complex Mask (Donati Studio Mask) Yup’ik; Kuskokwim Region, Alaska , c. 1890-1905. Image courtesy Donald Ellis.

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views, Contributor

Canadian dealer Donald Ellis will offer two rare 19th century Eskimo masks from the estate of Surrealist artist Enrico Donati at New York’s  Winter Antiques Show, running Jan. 21-30.

Among the most important Native American objects to come to market since the 1940s, the masks are slated to sell for around $2 million apiece, according to Ellis.

The ceremonial yu’pik masks, made of wood, animal pigments, feathers and fibers, influenced the group of Surrealist artists who fled Paris for New York during World War II. One of the two masks hung in Donati’s atelier for over 60 years.

The masks are consigned to  Ellis directly from the Donati estate. They were originally acquired in 1905 by Adam Hollis Twitchell, an explorer who traveled Alaska during the gold rush. Twitchell purchased the series of 12 weather masks directly from  Alaskan natives. They were then sold to George Gustav Heye, and moved with his collection to New York’s Museum of the American Indian in 1916.

After the museum deaccessioned the works to noted New York dealer Julius Carlebach in 1944 due…

James Fuentes via Frank Prattle

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Geographic outlier James Fuentes is moving his gallery to a new 1,200 square foot space on Delancey Street where he will be closer to his Lower East Side compatriots. He moves from digs on the quaint, but obscure, St. James Place in Chinatown.

While the Delancey locale may lack the rustic character of the old space (a former Italian Men’s social club, adjacent a funeral parlor), it compensates in convenience.

The new ground-floor locale is nestled between the New Museum and Orchard Street’s gallery corridor. It was previously occupied by a sign maker.

Fuentes, a former Deitch director, opened his gallery in Jan. 2007, with cash he earned working on his former boss’s reality television show – “Artstar.”

In old school fashion, he lived above the store.

Fuentes is known for cultivating the careers of emerging artists such as Lizzi Bougatsos and Agathe Snow, mixed media artist and ex- wife of the late Dash Snow. Fuentes exhibited in the Liste art fair in Basel in June and Art Basel in Miami Beach 2009.

He opens Sept. 24th with a…

Hirschl & Adler Galleries at 21 East 70th Street, priced $22.5M © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

On the off chance there are any homeless, cash flush art dealers…

A five-story Upper East Side mansion, home to Hirschl & Adler Galleries for 33 years, has been tagged $22.5 million and is listed with Leslie J. Garfield & Co. (Click here for listing).

The seller is Felicie Balay and two children of the late dealer Roland Balay.

The price is less than half the $49.9 million price tag on the adjacent, larger, 19 East 70th Street, occupied by Knoedler & Co. The Knoedler homestead has been for sale since December 2009, originally priced $59.9 million. See Sotheby’s listing here.

Hirschl is relocating to the Crown Building at 730 Fifth Avenue in November.

The new 13,000 one-floor venue will house the dealer’s array of American fine art, furniture, silver, lighting, glass and ceramics. The Crown Building is also home to Greenberg Van Doren, Nohra Haime, D. Wigmore Fine Art and others. Forum Gallery arrives in October.

Hirschl & Adler was founded in 1952 by Norman Hirschl and Abraham Adler. Originally housed in the Marguery Hotel on…

Art dealer Larry Gagosian in background left, purple tie, speaking on panel at Abu Dhabi Art in 2009. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Art dealer Larry Gagosian is doing all he can to bond with the Abu Dhabi power brokers. Last year he participated in a panel during the oil-rich country’s new Abu Dhabi Art Fair. (I attended the panel and blogged about it here.)

This year Gagosian is shipping his art collection to Abu Dhabi for a first-time public viewing. The show, RSTW (an acronym for its all male roster — Rauschenberg, Ruscha, Serra, Twombly, Warhol and Wool)  runs Sept. 22 to Jan. 24 and will be curated by Anne Baldassari, president of the Fondation Picasso. The show is being presented under the auspices of the country’s top honcho:  HH Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

The venue is a temporary exhibition space called the Manarat Al Saadiyat which last year displayed a group of Middle Eastern artwork. The building is located on Saadiyat Island, where new Louvre and Guggenheim museums are under construction,  along with thousands of luxury condos.

Works in the show include Rauschenberg’s 1963 Overdrive, Serra’s 1984 Malmo Roll, Warhol’s 1960 Brillo Soap Pads and 1972 Mao.

Stair Galleries auction preview of Salander July 24, 2010 sale. A painting by Lawrence Salander sits to the right of the podium. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

When he wasn’t busy buying, selling and hustling art, dealer Larry Salander loved to paint. Recently sentenced to six to 18 years in prison for fraud and larceny, he may now have time to indulge his hobby.

We wondered if his paintings were any good and phoned up David Cohen who runs Art Critical, a robust online art magazine.

Cohen was kind enough to glance at a few jpegs.

“Well, they don’t make my heart pound faster,” he said.

While not a fan of the work, Cohen believes they reflect someone with serious intentions. “If they give him a window with a view, he would be able to develop his landscape skills, but not with a palette knife,” said Cohen, who guessed those might be off limits behind bars.

The market for Salander’s paintings hasn’t proven to be much more enthusiastic.

A group of Salander’s paintings recently sold at Stair Galleries in Hudson, New York, to benefit the dealer’s creditors, who are on the hook for upwards of $120 million.

Suffice it to say, the art proceeds didn’t make much of a dent. Prices at the…

Photo: Hanny B via Flickr

In a radical twist on the art fair model, the new VIP Art Fair will exist only online, catering to busy collectors weary of the cost and hassle of traveling. It’s Second Life meets Gilt Groupe for the art biz.

Seasoned Chelsea dealer James Cohan has teamed up with Internet entrepreneur Jonas Almgren, to launch the fair, according to art market sources. The event is being billed as the “first ever” virtual art fair.

The first edition is slated for January, usually a quiet time in the gallery sale cycle. The fair is comprised of virtual stands priced $4,000 to $20,000, according to sources. The fair will be timed, and we believe, last for one week, like timed sales mounted by online retailers on member-only sites such as Gilt Groupe and Ru La La. (A VIP Art Fair web page, with a snazzy black and white logo, has been set up, but the site is not yet live. The fair also has a Facebook page with 22 fans).

Cohan already has signed aboard an impressive group of international dealers, despite…

Sara Meltzer on left via New York Social Diary

The latest dealer to announce a change up is Chelsea’s Sara Meltzer who sent out an email last week headed “New directions…” Meltzer, who ran her own gallery for over a decade,  said she plans to continue working with artists, but “more as a producer and agent,” according to her email.

The gallery’s co-directors, Rachel Gugelberger and Jeffrey Walkowiak are departing and Meltzer is moving into a new space at 525-531 West 26th Street, the same building where she had previously operated her gallery. Her artists included Jason Middlebrook, Nina Katchadourian and Peter Rostovsky.

A video of Meltzer discussing her work  found here. Her new venture is called Sara Meltzer Gallery/Projects.

“As times have changed for me both personally and in the marketplace, I am eager to embark on a new, more free-form model that will open up new kinds of opportunities,” Meltzer wrote in her email. She will collaborate with  “curators, collectors, writers and investors to promote artists in a more gratifying and productive way,” she wrote.

She launches Oct. 1 with a site-specific installation by Sarah Cain in conjunction with curator Miki Garcia, of…

John Connelly via SVA Blog

Dealer John Connelly is closing his gallery this Friday after nearly a decade at the helm of a cutting edge emporium associated with artists such as Assume Astrid Vivid Focus, Scott Hug and Mungo Thomson. He will become director of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.

John Connelly Presents, located at 625 West 27th Street, closes on Friday with a reception from 6-8 pm. The final exhibit features the somber, historicizing paintings of Jeronimo Elespe. Connelly’s program was known for artists favoring political and social themes. “He was drawn to themes that were not necessarily things built to sell, but emerged outside of the commercial arena,” said art adviser Sheri Pasquarella.

Connelly launched his nomadic curatorial project in 2000, while working as a director at Andrea Rosen Gallery. Rosen represents the Gonzalez-Torres estate.

In 2002, Connelly, a founding member of NADA, opened a small 10th floor space on West 26th Street. In 2006 he teamed up with Pasquarella and others to transform a desolate strip along West 27th Street into an art dealing hub.

In 2003, Roberta Smith tagged Connelly as among the three best young galleries in town. (The…

Art dealer Lawrence Salander, seated on end of bench, surrounded by his lawyer Charles Ross and three adult children this morning at New York State Supreme Court. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

A pair of burly court officers escorted a tearful, handcuffed Lawrence Salander from a courtroom this afternoon, shortly after a judge doled out his sentence. Salander, the former dealer and Sunday painter who had plead guilty to a $120 million art fraud in March, received six to 18 years in prison.  Judge Michael J. Obus termed the saga “deplorable.”

The hearing, which commenced around 9:30 a.m. this morning, concluded nearly four hours later. Ten victims stood before a podium and described tales of emotional and financial pain.

Salander’s lawyer Charles Ross asked the court for leniency, citing  Salander’s family–seven children– and poor health, noting the dealer had been an alcoholic for over forty years.

Salander, wearing wrinkled khakis,  was accompanied by his three adult children–Ivana, Isaac and Jonah. Salander’s wife Julie, who has split with her husband, also attended.

“Salander is a pathologically self-absorbed con man,” said assistant district attorney Kenn Kern, who pressed for the maximum sentence. Salander “lived the dream,” said Kern, citing a birthday party at the Frick, private jet rides and a 60 acres estate in Millbrook, “financed by a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernard…

Michael Findlay in Abu Dhabi. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Acquavella Galleries director Michael Findlay says the “art world is no more or less cloistered than the entertainment world, the landscape-gardening world, or the real-estate world,” in a New Yorker letter to the editor published in the Aug. 2 issue.

Findlay responds to David Grann’s otherwise illuminating article in last week’s issue (The Mark of a Masterpiece July 12 & 19) questioning the fingerprinting tactics of Peter Paul Biro. (That story, which I recommend, is here).

Grann wrote that the matter of authentication is complicated by “the public’s distrust of the cloistered art world.”

Findlay begs to differ. He points out that art galleries are free and open to the public, as are pubic auctions. Further, museums endeavor to attract and educate visitors.

The dealer blames any “cloistered” sensibility  on “outlandish claims of authenticity by people motivated by avarice.”