Interiors
Gordon Watson interview
Interiors
Gordon Watson is an extraordinary man. When, together with his business partner Lewis Kaplan, he opened the doors of his Fulham Road store in 1979, queues around the block bought out his entire stock, ringing over £150,000 in the first day alone. It was clear he'd hit upon something of a winning formula. Almost thirty years later he is one of the world's leading authorities on 20th century design and as compulsive a buyer as ever, refreshingly borne from nothing other than a sheer love and appreciation for good design.
First I want to ask your opinion on a debate that’s very prevalent at the moment in design and art circles, this heralded change whereby the boundaries between furniture and art are becoming increasingly blurred. It seems you’ve been at the forefront of this issue but in a completely different way from modern artist/designers?
Indeed it’s a very big debate at the moment. It’s gone to a completely different level recently where designers are being marketed just as contemporary artists, which isn’t how I want to sell furniture. For me, furniture is furniture. It’s got to be used. I think it’s fantastic for great architects to make great furniture, but what I don’t understand is this idea of the ‘limited edition’. Photography sort of gets away with it, but furniture, I just don’t understand this. And the prices! The market is as manipulated as the contemporary art market and it’s bizarre, I think. And I don’t approve.
You talk about furniture being furniture very clearly but is the whole notion of selling furniture through auction contributing to the Design Art debate? It’s obviously a process of selling furniture that’s happened since the beginning of time but has the way that people view furniture auctions changed?
Indeed it has considerably. When I used to work at Sotheby’s 30 years ago, there was a lot of talk of opening the battle between the auction rooms and the dealers. Because at that point, the only people that went to the auction were dealers. I mean, there was the odd collector present sometimes, but it was a dealer’s market. I’m sure a very lucrative one as well. The auction rooms, particularly Sotheby’s, have done this incredible campaign to bring in private people, to make them comfortable with the notion of going in and buying and bidding for themselves and choosing. And I think 30 years on here I am back at Sotheby’s curating a sale that will have very little dealer interaction. It’s 80-90% client orientated. That’s the revolution. And it is not the discussion whether furniture is art, or art is furniture, the revolution is that private clients are collecting for themselves to decorate their houses, which I think is fantastic. People understand the rarity and beauty, and are much more switched on than they’ve ever been. People know who the great architects and decorators of the 20th century were and hence we’re now in a very sophisticated market.
And why do you think this has happened?
I think it’s a gradual thing. Everyone who buys contemporary art buys this kind of furniture. It’s sort of linked. And the phenomena of our period is that contemporary art has amassed such a mass appeal- it’s not just America and parts of Europe like it used to be, it’s worldwide. And I think the furniture thing goes along with it.
And as you had your Fulham Road store for about 30 years, were you aware of this shift?
Yes, I mean we used to sell to collectors and museums and we sold very rare pieces. I’m not even sure I have one collector coming to my Pimlico shop now. I have people who buy fabulous furniture for their fabulous houses. But I can’t call somebody up and say ‘I’ve got a stool by Gio Ponti that would be perfect for your collection.’ I just don’t have anyone like that.
So do these collectors exist still?
I think they do, yes. But they’re rare. Generally, it’s just about people wanting to have beautiful things to compliment their extraordinary expensive houses and lifestyle.
I’m sure it would be very reassuring to the designers to know that their pieces were still see in a principally functional light now.
Yes I think that’s the whole point. That’s why in this sale the most expensive pieces are a fabulous pair of 1930s chairs by Pierre Chareau, very classic, absolute icons of Art Deco. But most of the things are around £5,000 - £10,000 or £2,000 - £3,000. I really wanted it to be a case of people being able to afford to buy if they really loved a piece. I don’t want to deal in pieces of furniture that are £200,000 or £300,000, it’s not the way I like trading. I like meeting new people. I certainly don’t like things when they’ve become so rarefied.
And perhaps so expensive that you’re terrified to use them, maybe this is where a piece of furniture crosses the boundary into being seen as art?
Yes, exactly. I mean we’re talking about furniture after all, it’s meant to be functional.
What were the concerns that affected the designers in the 1940s? Was functionalism the driving principle?
1940s is a weird generic time because lots of things were made before the war, things were made during the war, and things were made after the war. I think after the war, people wanted fun and a lightness. There’s a lightness of touch to those pieces, and I think that’s as a result of what was going on in way of the horrors of Europe. By the 50s and 60s, houses started to become more functional, so the pieces became more functional. The look then passed into the mainstream. So there were mass-produced pieces, Robin Day and those English types, and the quality of the work went out. So whilst there was great design, they weren’t crafted, they were made in factories. The reason I like these 40s things is they come from virtually the last period of proper craftsmanship. Obviously all the way through, people care, but I think back then things were made with great fastidiousness and I think as the century progressed it became less and less.
And how has the customer changed since the 40s?
They’re probably much the same as people who are buying contemporary things now. They’re probably quite switched-on, middle-class to very wealthy. They probably had decorators who were tuned into the look and decided that this would be the look for a newly built house. I don’t think any period has ever really been mainstream.
Moving on to the auction itself, how did you actually set it up? Obviously, you were approached by Sotheby’s to curate it for them after the success of last year’s auction?
It was surprising to me, and I think to Sotheby’s, how many new private people that Sotheby’s has got. I mean they got a crowd of 400 people to the auction of my shop collection last year. It’s unusual for the auction rooms to get that sort of response. Also there were lots of new buyers, young wealthy buyers. And I think Sotheby’s realised that there was a new market to tap into. Because what the auction rooms want more than anything, are the new buyers.
How consciously did you try and coordinate the collection?
What I didn’t want was one of those mixed sales where you have a Tiffany lamp next to an arts and crafts lamp. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but with those kinds of auctions, you go through and you only find three things that are of interest and then you end up not bothering to go because you think, what’s the point. I wanted a sale that was going to have quite a tight look, something that really flows. If things are good, they will hold up and really work together.
Did you have specific products in mind that you had seen?
I knew I wanted to do the 1940s, because it’s very saleable and it’s a look that really works with contemporary art and would fit into modern buildings and flats. And I really looked for some wackier things where there would be a story, like the dressing table, chair and bed by Ferrabini, which are fantastic. Nobody really knew of Ferrabini. We were in Italy and I employed an art historian from Colombia University to research him because there had been nothing written about him. It turns out that he was a wealthy dilettante from Milan who had been a painter and then a sculptor, but his best friend was Carlo Mollino, and he was part of that really upper-middle class elite set of architects and designers. Ferrabini had sort of been forgotten about, which to me is really exciting. I think it’s the first time, certainly in England, that we’ve ever had any of his pieces in auction. He occupied that tiny space in a tiny period of time in the furniture history of Italy, and I find that really exciting. I want bring new things in. For instance we’re selling those marble pieces by Mangiarotti. When you go to very smart antique fairs in Paris or America, you’ll see these pieces, but they don’t come up in auction, because they’re being bought up by the even smarter decorators, to sell to their clients. I want to bring those bypassed things that aren’t normally in an auction. There is a sort of a parallel chic universe, where things are being discovered and bought up on the underground, only filtering through 10 years later to the auction rooms when they’re established. I wanted to try and pre-empt that.
And did you then approach the people who owned these pieces?
Yes. Well, if I’d seen you then I would have asked you if you had anything to put in the sale. Every single person that I knew or met, I would somehow get round to Sotheby’s and the sale. The embarrassing thing was, at one point, it was arid, it was like a desert – there was nothing. And then suddenly it was like an avalanche. And of course then you have to edit pieces out, which is something I hadn’t quite thought of. This was very embarrassing, telling people that their pieces were not quite what I thought of. It then became a rejection of their taste, as opposed to mine. So that was the flip side of things.
So what is the incentive for the people who do give their pieces?
Well, they want to sell. Lots of wealthy but busy people buy things, not knowing what to do with them, so they get put into storage. And these people don’t sell, because the process of selling just doesn’t occur to them. They’ve got other things to do, or they’ll think they might use it in another house. So I just kept on asking if they had anything in storage. And that’s the key. Suddenly a light bulb went, and we got photographs sent over, and that’s how it evolved.
How long did the whole process actually take?
We had a year, but I’m Piscean and very lazy, so I only work under pressure. Which means it took about six months, and lots in the past three months. Locating the Farrabini pieces, funnily enough was the key, and then I got really inspired. I thought, oh my god this is going to be fabulous, and that went on from there.
What are the standout pieces in your opinion?
The Farrabini bed, and the dressing table I think is so wild and funky. I love the dining table by Ado Chale. It’s a round dining table set with hundreds of pieces of segments of Cornelian, set in resin and lit from below. The white Mangiarotti table is fabulous. The pair of Fontana Arte little side tables in cashmere blue sapphire is extraordinary. They’re all extraordinary, there are just so many good pieces there.
Click here to see a selection of lots from the auction.
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20th Century Decorative Arts auction will take place at 2pm on Wednesday 26 September.
- Website
- http://www.sothebys.com
- Telephone
- +44(0)20.7293.6000
- Address
- Sotheby's 34-35 New Bond Street London W1A 2AA
