Michael Jefferson is a fount of knowledge and kindness whose focus, talent, and good deeds have won him the hearts and minds of good people the world over. As Senior Specialist at Wright, the premier Chicago auction house specializing in modern and contemporary design, he can make you or break you. But due to his aforementioned kindness, he has yet to use the “break” option on anyone or anything (even though some probably deserve it). Freelance Art Director and friend to Base, Hans Seeger, managed to get Mr. Jefferson out of the office (where the ringing phone never sleeps) and to Danny’s Tavern on Chicago’s W. Dickens Avenue, where the following conversation took place.
Hans Seeger: What in the marketplace do you think people are paying too much for or is getting too much attention?
Michael Jefferson: It’s hard to speak about it specifically because there’s a lot you could say people have paid too much for now, looking at the market in hindsight. But there are certain things that have gone quickly out of style or that have become passé or archaic with this new economy we’re in. I think people were pursuing design as fashion far too much. They were wanting to buy really splashy, arbitrary, limited things and the design part was being subverted by the money part. I think you see that with the material choices. These kinds of singular, sculptural pieces that were speaking so much louder than real design. So, all these things now look so passé and expensive and those are the things that people were overpaying for.
HS: So, is that a good thing?
MJ: I think it’s a great thing that time has this way of filtering out things. Of being the ultimate judge. This is the sweeping arm of posterity. Nobody can predict what posterity is going to decide. Duchamp spoke of posterity; what he said in effect was, “I don’t know how this stuff will be judged, they’re just amusements. Posterity will decide.” As if posterity was this person over here with the ultimate opinion. Or a godlike figure. So, I think it’s great that things get swept aside in these, like, grand changes of time. These are decades rolling on. You and I are into our third, maybe fourth, decade of living. We are more or less youthful people. So you don’t really have the perspective of, how this works, how history works, until you’re our age and you see this first cycle of it. For instance, in the ’80s, when things came to a screeching halt and markets did what they did. We didn’t quite feel it. We really didn’t know what that meant. We didn’t see it. We didn’t really care. We were just out playing or doing other things. But now it’s so obvious. And it’s great to see history playing itself out. So, yes, it’s a great thing, to see the filtering out.
HS: That said, who or what do you think has been underrated?
MJ: Well, I think there are a lot of things to still discover. Whether it’s in the modern period, meaning the last 80-some years of design history, or even people that are working currently. There’s a lot of things that are underrated. But I think things that are rooted in tradition, and not in a fancy, rich-guy-in-a-mansion kind of tradition, but more in the tradition of craft. Salt-of-the-earth things. People working with their hands. Inspired designers that are solving problems.
The first thing that comes to mind are the Danes. They’re conscious of touch and scale and proportion and material and the craft involved with it. It’s not like these things are really underrated necessarily—these things are some of the most expensive things on the market—but when I look at the market and how it’s changed, the Danish design spectrum remains steady. It didn’t shoot way up and become this fashionable, gotta-get-it sort of thing. Nor is it going to have this big crash. It’s always this steady, beautiful thing because it’s so humane. When you sit down, it’s comfortable. You get a hug. It’s like hanging out with a friend. It’s not like the chair’s going to slap you or yell at you for being in the same room. So anyway, I think those things are underrated in the market, consistently so.
Similar to the things made by the Japanese. These quiet things, these craft-made things. We should return to the guild, where there are small tribes of designers or like-minded individuals pursuing a certain aesthetic or style. And they’re making work. It’s not about the selling-out of a certain form or making a limited edition, but solving design issues and making things people are happy with that have long-term value because they’re quality.
Quality is the consistent thread in this. There’s also ceramics. There’s a lot to pursue there. It’s again, a very humane thing. So there are a lot of things that are underrated and overlooked, but those are the first few things that come to mind.
HS: How has the economy affected the art & design market? Any upsides to it? How does it affect you literally?
MJ: Well, in the literal sense our market is off 40-50%. Prices are down that much. Like the stock market. I think that the art & design market was walking in lockstep with the stock market and as we reached a peak in late 2007, we then did this gradual but steady slide down through 2008. As value was being slogged off the stock market the same was true in our market. A lot of the people that buy in this market, their wealth is linked to their perceived wealth and that is in their stock holdings, etc. And that is neither good nor bad. There are really smart, sensitive human people out there involved in the financial markets and their willingness to spend money is based on what their portfolios tell them. That’s the reality. It doesn’t make them evil. So, the market is down. It’s down a lot. We hit this big skid and there are certain aspects of the market that will continue to go down, but overall I think it’s kind of steadied itself. I think it’s decided it’s not going to go down another 40-50% from where it is now. Some parts will go down another 10 or 20% and some parts are going to go up 10 or 20%; it should be like that for a while.
HS: How did you get in this business?
MJ: By chance. My background comes from having studied painting and having a real interest in the creative process and making art. I moved to Chicago to pursue this idea of being an artist and making my living as an artist, but I needed a job. A friend of mine was working at Prairie Avenue Books (pabooks.com). So I got the job at Prairie Avenue.
From there my interest in art segued into architecture and this new environment I was in. And it was really interesting to me; it became this secondary education. Knowing art and then learning about buildings. Then somewhere between all of that are the little fragments of both, which is somehow design. I became interested in objects and design and the owners of the bookstore, Marilyn and Bill Hasbrouck, said, “If you like that stuff, go out to Oak Park and go talk to Richard Wright at the Treadway Gallery. You can buy this stuff at auction.” And I’m like, “What is an auction? What do you mean you can buy this stuff? Isn’t it all in museums?” So then, with this idea I could procure these things, I started to save a little scratch here and there and went to an auction. Heidi [Michael’s wife] and I decided to bid on a piece. It was estimated at $200. We bought it for $550 and it blew our minds. We each wrote a check for it.
So we bought a piece at auction and the next thing you know I’m kind of like a groupie. Pursuing the stuff. Richard then spun off from Treadway and opened his own gallery, Wright, which had a real emphasis in the way the work was presented. I approached him and said, “Look, I’m interested in working for you.” And they—Richard and his wife Julie—somehow took a liking to me and hired me. And so I really didn’t know anything, but I had an interest. And still do. I continue to be like a sponge towards it.
HS: What was the piece you bought?
MJ: A Paul McCobb credenza.
HS: Nice.
MJ: Yeah. A very simple piece.
HS: What do think is the most beautiful piece to have walked through the doors at Wright? The one that put tears in your eyes when it left?
MJ: (Small laugh) Well, it’s probably this table by Isamu Noguchi. And it’s kind of the obvious choice because it sold for the most, but that’s not really what it was about for me. I just clung to it from the beginning. It’s made by one of my design idols, for one, and it’s rare, but it’s a beautiful handcrafted thing made of stone and wood in an organic, biomorphic shape. Something that was just eminently livable and tactile and beautiful. It was a shocker to see it and I was happy that the market rewarded it because it’s not necessarily the thing that should’ve brought the most money. So anyway, that piece, I think, is the one.
HS: What would you say separates Wright from the others? Phillips de Pury, Sotheby’s, etc.?
MJ: I’d like to think it was our scholarship and our unique ability to present material, and our eye, but who knows if all that stuff is really what somehow separates us. I think what probably separates us the most is that we are in Chicago and we somehow have given the other auction houses in other major cities, New York specifically, a run for their money. We have an independent spirit, I guess, and we’re interested in it as creative people, but I think it’s just the fact that we’re scrappy, and in Chicago that separates us. That somehow we can succeed by not being embedded in New York. I think we have our own approach to the market. I think that separates us too.
HS: At Wright, design is really all you do. It’s not like one week it’ll be 20th century design then the next it’s Jackie O’s jewelry or Marilyn Monroe’s underpants. There’s a focus there. I guess my next question would be, is that focus rewarded?
MJ: Well, I’m trying to get more underpants in our auction, but it’s hard, man. It’s a rare market to jump into. (Laugh) I think people do respect the fact that we’re focused completely on design and that we were from the beginning. When we started, people were not taking design so seriously because it didn’t bring big money and it was a smaller group of connoisseurs that pursued it. Also, people say they look to us to be tastemakers. I think that’s probably true.
There are always things that I’m curious about presenting that I think don’t really have a precedent in the market, but if there’s something valid and good, we’ll take the risks. Sometimes we’ll be very successful and sometimes we’ll fail. And we’re OK with that. We’re nimble and small and willing to focus on design, come what may. Plus, we’re not afraid of selling something for $25 or just shy of a million dollars, let’s say. There’s a lot of good stuff in that large range. Some just focus on the elite pieces and forget about the rest. I think our commitment is to design as a whole. I think that’s different.
HS: In the past, at your space during sales, I’ve met competitors of yours and everyone is so lovey-dovey and complimentary to one another, and I was wondering, is it really that cordial? Or is it more like the pleasantries exchanged at a weigh-in before a heavyweight title fight?
MJ: (Laughs) That’s a good analogy. I think we’re all pretty respectful of each other. I think we all understand each of our own personalities, or traits, let’s say. I tend to get along with everyone else in the business. I think we’re all secretly trying to get one over on the other or win a consignment that the other person is vying for, but I don’t think there’s really great animosity there. I think when there are missteps by our colleagues or by us, they’re readily pounced upon. Either publicly or privately on the phone. So there’s some real competition there, but not much real blood.
Read part 2 of this interview.
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