Alice Duncan, Director, Gerald Peter’s Gallery
By Madeline Justiniano ’21
I really enjoyed speaking to Alice Duncan of the Gerald Peter’s Gallery for many reasons. First of all, I think she really portrayed a unique position in being a woman who had been involved in the fine art dealing business for many decades. Not only had she been in the business, but she had consistently held jobs that were breaking new ground in the vocabulary of art. Second of all, I enjoyed her frank tone, and the very realistic, if somewhat blunt way of assessing the current state of the art market.
Duncan’s first major job, as a curator of sculpture at Christie’s, was a new position that was pretty much non-existent before her. Sculpture didn’t have the selling power of the Old Master paintings and had been a non-issue for Christie’s until shortly before her hiring. She had been recommended for the job by her old friend, the Queen’s furniture keeper who “didn’t like the guys she was hanging around with” and “wanted her to get married”. It’s ironic and dismaying to realize that even as she was helped in her career, it wasn’t out of respect for her expertise, but mostly out of concern for her marital future. She was given an insultingly easy test to pass before receiving the job. Despite any sexist motivations, she excelled at the job and defied the odds to keep working after marriage and two kids. She described to us how that job had bended the rules to allow her to bring her kids to work and how Christie’s pre-privatization had been a very different organization. Later, we would hear from Rob Schoelkopf how Christie’s changed when it changed hands from British to French ownership from a different perspective.
It was Christie’s that made Duncan successful, but it was the Gerald Peter’s Gallery that would ultimately seduce her away from the auction houses. She spoke with true passion when she described how Peter’s goes about its business and reverence when analyzing the art in the room. Her respect for Bierstadt and O’Keefe as well as Max Weber and the various sculptors present in the room betrayed her connoisseurship as well as her personal admiration. She said during our group session that she was not nurturing and not inclined to deal with younger artists, but I have a hard time imagining that someone with her eye could ignore true talent if she saw it.
Duncan emphasized to us in a later conversation that her success stemmed from her true passion for sculpture. She said something along the lines of “You can go work for one of the auction houses and fight your way to the top of the contemporary department, or you can study something you love and persist and endure.” Just because a certain area of expertise is in vogue does not mean it will always be. Rob Schoelkopf basically told us the same thing: that when all things are said and done there will always be a need for experts in pre-war art. I found all of this very helpful. Just because I could easily get a job in post-war art, especially if I specialize in an underrepresented or poorly understood field, doesn’t mean that I should. I should study what really draws me in, not just so I can last longer and be happier in my field, but because there will always be jobs for those who are passionate and competent about what they write about.
This was important to me as I contemplate a career in an art history related field. Should I be a museum curator or a gallery registrar, I know that I need to first find what interests me most and learn all that I can about it.
