Shortage of top quality art, says auctioneer

Despite three consecutive art auctions in Dublin scheduled to begin on Monday – at Whyte’s, de Veres and Adam’s – and other sales around the country, buyers are not, necessarily, spoilt for choice.

The autumn catalogues noticeably lack any major paintings by leading artists and, although there are works by Sir John Lavery, Jack B Yeats, Paul Henry and Roderic O'Conor, among others going under the hammer, all are in the lower price range for these artists.

So what's going on? Auctioneer Ian Whyte said: "There is an acute shortage of top-quality art and collectibles for auction in Ireland at the moment. This is due to the low interest rates and high capital gains taxation which are deterrents for sellers. There is, however, lots of art at the lower end of the scale which is difficult to sell because of the lack of buyers of affordable art. The latter were young couples moving into their first home". But Mr Whyte strikes a note of optimism: "With the lack of new homes being built, the art market is suffering from a shortage of wall space. Apparently we need 60,000 new homes by 2018, that could amount to 250,000 to one million works of art."