ART APPRECIATION.

As the New Economy creates new local millionaires, Angelenos are becoming world-class art collectors -- and local artists are more sought-alter than ever before

"ALL art is completely useless," Oscar Wilde wrote in his introduction to "The Portrait of Dorian Gray." And although it became a catch-phrase, the sentiment apparently leaves Angelenos unmoved as they increase their presence in the big-buyers' art market.

By almost all accounts, today's boomtown economics have added a new generation of collectors who have not only created a financially robust art market, but a smarter one as well.

Further, local players agree that you can't have a healthy market without a healthy base of artists, and L.A. is presently enjoying just such a convergence of circumstances.

"Extraordinary art is being made, and that's what's being bought," said Douglas Chrismas, director of what claims to be L.A.'s longest-running contemporary showing room, Ace Gallery.

Intellectuals in L.A.?

In what might come as something of a shock to denizens of rival urban centers, he credits L.A.'s intellectual atmosphere for the current renaissance, noting by way of example that L.A. provides shelter to 80 percent of all living Nobel Prize winners.

"We're in a think-tankish kind of atmosphere, and that energy is affecting all areas of science and blending itself into the creative channels," Chrismas says.

However, as most collectors know, money's nice, too. "You also have an economic climate that lubricates the desires for this wonderful work," Chrismas concedes.

For Christie's in Beverly Hills, the soft talk is confirmed by hard numbers, according to Robert Looker, the auction house's head of 20th century art. He says a pair of sales in June totaled $5.6 million. Christie's maiden foray into the L.A. market back in October '98 generated $3.5 million in sales.

Looker says L.A. has always represented a strong buying pool for the 20th century and contemporary art markets, but what's changed is that instead of going to New York to find it, many are buying their art right here.

"We'd never held sales out here before, so what we brought to the West Coast was geared to California collectors," he said. That meant Golden State luminaries who typically sold well in New York, namely Edward Ruscha, David Hockney and David Park.

This California art is being dug out of European collections and being found by scouting for new local artists. "The knowledge that we're doing so well with California artists in L.A. is causing art collectors to consider trying to purchase them in the local market," Looker said.

A case in point: The last Christie's sale set a world record for an oil-on-paper work when Ruscha's "Honk" fetched a thoroughly unexpected $248,000 from a European dealer. The pre-auction estimate was $45,000. "These are Ruscha's rare, early works and his hottest commodity right now. The sale generated enormous international interest," Looker says.

Ace Gallery is also enjoying a surge of interest from international sources. "People are coming into L.A. from all over the world this summer, so we have a real diversity of visitors to the gallery," says Chrismas. 'We're selling to people from Stuttgart, Aspen, Japan. International sales are becoming more and more of a fact."

And vice versa. The presence of Angelenos on the international market is increasing as well. Just ask New York-based ARTnews writer Milton Esterow, who penned the introduction to the magazine's just-released compilation of "The World's 200 Top Art Collectors." It contained a total of 11 L.A. collectors, including two in the top 10: Edythe and Eli Broad (they like modern and contemporary pieces) and DreamWorks SKG music mogul David Geffen (just contemporary).

Of course, L.A.'s ebullient 11 are still dwarfed by a fabulous 50 collectors listing New York among their bases of operation. (These folks tend to live in more than one place.) But Esterow says that, compared to 10 years ago when the magazine initiated its annual compilation, "1 don't think there were as many heavy hitters from L.A. as there are now."

Esterow says growing numbers of show biz executives have become collectors, "although not big enough to make the list."

Different attitudes

What's new since the last art boom in the '80s is who is fueling the good times and what they're buying, says Esterow. "This is the healthiest art market in decades," he says. "During the last boom, people were buying art the way they buy pork bellies or stocks." It was not uncommon in those days to buy a work and place it back on the market nine months later at Christie's or Sotheby's, and triple one's money in the process.

But just as often, buyers looking at art merely as a route to a quick monetary score were often disappointed. Art experts warn that, while artworks can and do often appreciate in value, other asset classes are probably safer, more-predictable bets. Art should always be purchased primarily for its aesthetic or cultural value, rather than for its profit potential, they say.

No matter, L.A.' s new breed of collector is making plenty of money at their day jobs -- which tend to be in tech, entertainment or financial services.

Sotheby's West Coast Chairwoman Andrea Van de Kamp says the new money has yet to truly register at auctions, where longtime collectors still reign supreme. However, she did point to a recent purchase of an original-run Declaration of Independence from Sothebys.com, for $8.14 million by L.A. television mogul Norman Lear and his business partner David Hayden (a Bay Area tech entrepreneur) as reflective of the nontraditional activity.

"This is not something you would have heard of Sotheby's auctioning 20 years ago," says Van de Kamp.

Some suggest the older art world may be meeting its match in the nouveau riche, who Esterow asserts "are losing their inferiority complex about art. The new collectors have made a lot of money recently and they're turning out to be more sophisticated and knowledgeable. They read magazines, go to galleries, but then make up their own minds."

Rosamund Felsen, director of a gallery that bears her name at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, is not quite so sure. "I think what is selling are the very young or the blue chips and nothing in between. And that's too bad because the mid-career artists are doing more mature work now."

Felsen decries a lack of "connoisseurship" among these newcomers, who she says are "buying with their ears and not their eyes."

Then again, the point here is that they are buying.

Christie's Looker agrees with Esterow. "There's a young buying pool fueled by Hollywood and Silicon Valley money and there's a genuine interest in art," he said. "I don't know that they're investing. We already learned that lesson back in the '80s. This involves a savvy, educated approach that is willing to go for important, fresh material."

The Ebullient Eleven

Here are the 11 Angelenos who are among the 200 art collectors in the world, according to the summer 2000 issue of New York-based ARTnews magazine.

Edythe L. and Eli Broad

Source of Wealth: Financial services and housing development

Collection: Modern and contemporary art

Blake Byrne

Source of Wealth: Television

Collection: Contemporary art

David Geffen

Source of Wealth: Film and record production

Collection: Modern and contemporary art, especially American modernism

Beatrice and Philip Gersh

Source of Wealth: Entertainment

Collection: Contemporary art

Manfred Heiting

Source of Wealth: Business (American Express)

Collection: Photography

Audrey Irmas

Source of Wealth: Inheritance

Collection: Contemporary art, photography

Steve Martin

Source of Wealth: Entertainment

Collection: American art, contemporary art

Jack Nicholson

Source of Wealth: Entertainment

Collection: 20th century art

Michael Ovitz

Source of Wealth: Entertainment

Collection: Contemporary art

Etsuko and Joe D. Price

Source of Wealth: Pipeline development

Collection: Edo-period Japanese art

Dean Valentine

Source of Wealth: Television

Collection: Contemporary art