Newsmakers: After Opening in Paris, Gurr Johns CEO Harry Smith Says Everything Hinges on the US

Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, a new ARTnews series where we interview the movers and shakers who are making change in the art world.

Over the years, Harry Smith, CEO of Gurr Johns, has transformed the London-based advisory firm, which values around $12 billion in art each. Since acquiring the firm in the mid-1980s, Smith has grown it into a larger enterprise modeled on mid-sized auction houses, opened a branch in New York and, in 2022, launching an art lending fund. Smith’s latest venture is a new office in Paris, which opened earlier this month during the city’s edition of Art Basel.

In an interview with ARTnews, Smith explained that part of the reason for opening in Paris was to mitigate some of the challenges of conducting transactions in Europe post-Brexit. According to the annual UBS and Art Basel report, the UK’s share of global art sales fell from 21 to 17 percent between 2021 and 2023, while France’s share remained steady at 7 to 8 percent during the same period.

Annika Guntrum, managing director of Gurr Johns’ new Paris location, told the Financial Times that the city’s art market remains more traditional and stable compared to other hubs. “We don’t hit the same highs, but we also don’t hit the same lows,” she noted.

ARTnews spoke with Smith after the opening of the firm’s new space, located on the Rue La Boétie close by the Champs Elysées, and the conditions his team faces as commerce continues to slow.

(This interview has been edited lightly for clarity and concision.)

ARTnews: You have been operating in New York and London for a long time and now in Paris. What are the main difference’s between them for your business?

Smith: The biggest difference is discretion. In New York, sales are very public. Collectors and vendors are happy to have their names attached to works at auction. In Paris, it’s the opposite. People prefer private sales and don’t want to be identified as major collectors. The British are somewhere in the middle, but I’d say they lean more toward discretion as well.

How would you describe the market atmosphere at the moment for collectors?

Smith: It’s true the market right now is a bit choosy. in a way, that is almost a sign of health. The contemporary market has been a bit volatile. It thrived off speculation for several years, but bubbles don’t inflate forever. They always burst. When they do, a lot of less valuable art becomes worthless, and the truly good artists find their level. I’m actually quite sanguine about the contemporary art market reset because it needed it.

When the market is like it is now, discretionary sellers tend to wait. They hold off until the market improves. It used to be that you could expect one or two great Picasso paintings to come to market every year. But we haven’t seen a truly great Picasso for over two years now. He was so prolific. There’s always material of some sort. But that is a sign of the real shortage of great things.

You say your firm focuses on the “unloved” traditional areas of the market as it’s shifted towards contemporary artists. How is that an advantage in Paris?

Smith: By “unloved,” I mean pre-1900 works. The major auction houses have practically abandoned that segment. They’ve either left it entirely or don’t put their full resources into it. But we see opportunity in that. It’s just not quite as hot as the contemporary art market, but equally not as volatile as it either. But we don’t compete in that space and wouldn’t try to.

Most of our transactions are at the $250,000 to $5 million level, that’s where we’re active.

Does Paris provide some more security?

Clearly, Paris is not as big as New York and still not as big as London, It’s one of the growing centers, and it’s the art market center for Europe. There’s a huge amount of wealth in Switzerland. And the problem really with the UK now is that having left Europe, we have tax barriers for transactions between us and the US, and US and the and Europe. So we’re somewhat isolated here. And it’s, it’s beginning to have some impact. So that was one factor why we wanted to have a base in Europe so we could transact that.

Did anything from Art Basel Paris stand out as you’re making decisions on how to build the business there.

Smith: Basel in Paris had some success, although I noticed many of the works were ones I’d seen before, and there wasn’t much fresh material.

Fairs are important because they give a better sense of the market. An auction is just one event, and it can be distorted by a single successful painting or a large failure. A large percentage of items are pre-sold through guarantees, so the auction loses its marketplace element. A fair, with many dealers trading, is much more of a true marketplace.

There are debates about how impactful shifts between London and Paris are, but the US is really the center piece.

Smith: We never want to underestimate the wealth of America. It is so much bigger than everywhere else, where they’re barely on the same planet, and they’re solid. The art market depends on the American market more than anything. The Chinese come and go. The Russians are sanctioned. The three billionaires emerging from South America change the market a little bit, and then they disappear.