As a fine art storage facility, we do on occasion become involved in holding art assets on a fiduciary basis for estates or attorneys while various legal entanglements are sorted out. In other words, while people fight over who gets what. The recent court action filed by Victoria Duffy to forestall auction of specified artworks from the estate of her late husband Dennis Hopper is unfortunately typical of the process.

 On more than one occasion we have been asked to remove artworks from a residence in a hurry – on a weekend or late at night – by one spouse or another. Where this was recognizable as a questionable tactic or even admitted as an attempt to shield assets from a pending divorce action, we have declined to become involved. But often we have no idea who the legal owner of items might be. If someone engages us to move artworks to storage or to a third party location we will do so. Galleries often store paintings which they don’t own, and traveling exhibitions consisting of many loaned works are also routinely stored and transported between venues. In these circumstances it is the depositor of the goods who has the right of access to them – at least until proven otherwise.

Record keeping is generally the crux of the disposition matter. For serious collectors as well as the more amateur variety, being able to demonstrate the provenance of an artwork – who acquired it when, and from who, in what order – often settles the issue of legal title. If an artwork is stored by someone who is proven not to have legal title, it can be returned to the rightful owner. As the result of a proper legal action, and once the bills are paid, of course.

Companies like ours keep accurate records, and keep them long term, showing where artworks have been picked up, stored, and delivered. We do this for tax reasons, but such records are also useful to demonstrate chain of custody. Unlike self storage where there is no record of what is stored, we keep itemized inventories of everything on hand, dates in and dates out, and to whom items were released or delivered. If you are trying to hide assets, you’ll probably want to set up a nice web of cardboard holding companies before you call us. On the other hand if you’re looking to have careful inventory documentation, confidentiality, and assurance that proper procedures for access and information control are in place, then a fine art storage provider is your best bet. We’ve got your back. At least until the lawyers get to work.

Betsy Dorfman

The FBI has just launched a new searchable database which lists both images and details of stolen artworks. The National Stolen Art File (NSAF) is a free online tool allowing both the public, law enforcement, and institutions to aid in the identification and recovery of stolen works.  Oh and, yes, art shippers too.

Any item stolen in the U.S. and valued at $2000 or over can be listed. The goal, in addition to recovery, is to provide a forum that will help keep “hot” items off the market in the first place. Collectors and galleries can and should search here if any red flags are raised in the course of their due diligence before acquiring or representing works. The listings cover a variety of works including paintings, sculpture, stamps, pottery, tapestries, books and other cultural heritage artifacts.

The database currently has a library of some 7000 images, and items can be searched by keyword and category, as well as by artist, title, and date range. The FBI website also features stories of both solved and unsolved art thefts — pretty interesting reading from an unlikely source of, albeit cautionary,  entertainment.

Weve had only one encounter over the years with law enforcement seeking information on a possibly forged painting we shipped for a client. Such cases can take years to unfold and prosecute; just discovering the  principal parties to a transaction can be tricky where layers of contacts are deliberately put in place to conceal buyer and/or seller identities. Such concealment isn’t always nefarious — galleries and dealers sometimes have quite Byzantine arrangements involving loans and multipart ownership of pieces which may not be made transparent to the buyer. And which, so long as the artwork and provenance are genuine, will not be made famous online by the FBI.

It remains to be seen if the Internet will prove useful in curbing at least some of the trafficking in stolen art, which the FBI acknowledges to be an age old problem. Time to turn in that Monet you found in the dumpster — everyone is going to recognize it now.

Betsy Dorfman

 An art dealer friend recently disclosed that his trump card when closing deals with clients is to offer free shipping. More often than not, he said, this finalized the sale and allowed the buyer to depart feeling he or she had bargained well and struck a good deal. Further, this was true across the price spectrum of the art involved and no matter what the length of the negotiation process. It was free shipping or free local delivery & installation that sealed the bargain. This is not what a shipping company wants to hear. 

Compounding the horror, “free shipping” among online retailers has reached epidemic proportions and in fact has come to seem the norm. We feel shortchanged these days if we have to pay, or pay much, for shipping. It seems our birthright NOT to pay for shipping, not after we have just forked out for the thing/object/gadget itself. The giddy days of online sellers getting away with charging $8.99 to ship a $10 item seem lost in the quaint cyberpast.

So having promised the client the impossible, and feeling entitled to discounted shipping no matter what the commodity, the gallery or dealer then calls us seeking to send the artwork as cheaply as possible. We’ve been asked to put $30,000 artworks in cardboard boxes and ship them on UPS. Which, I hasten to add, we won’t do. It also explains why galleries often consign the job of arranging shipping to the lowest status employee who is newest on the job. Shipping is the last and least glamorous step in the dealer to customer transfer of title and custody. Basically, it’s a bore and a chore and, they would like us to think, it subtracts from rather than augments the bottom line. It’s the necessary evil mop up after the master has done his thing; hold your nose and dial the shipper.

But the truth is “free shipping” as anyone willing to reflect can probably deduce, is actually factored into the cost of the “thing” and so is not really free. We choose to perceive it as free because we want to feel like we are getting something for nothing, even when we know we aren’t. Art buyers, are you listening?

It would hardly be a sensible business model for art sellers to routinely “eat” shipping costs,. More likely they are factoring shipping into the cost and then, post sale, simply trying to maximize their profits by pressuring shippers to provide the most economical possible service. In this way everyone is happy except, well, me. I am stuck trying to persuade that new person at the gallery front desk that they really, really, really need to part with some actual money to protect their art in transit. That’s me, the bad guy spoiling everyone’s spoils.

Adding to the dilemma is the fact that the gallery typically wants the artwork off the premises and in the hands/on the wall of the customer as soon as possible before the glow of acquisition fades. So now we have a request for fast service, often a custom pickup at the gallery, plus expedited packing and shipping, plus custom delivery and installation all to be done on the cheap. Even after a couple of martinis, I can’t see a way to make that happen.

In a perfect world, everyone would recognize the service companies like ours provide and be willing to pay fair value for it. Santa, are you listening? In the meantime I continue my lonely battle against the tide of “free shipping” – with just a short time out this holiday season to transfer the items in my cart to the checkout window and collect my free 2-day shipping. Which they still call my “free 2 day shipping” even after charging my credit card $79 for yearly access to this privilege. Such a deal.

Betsy Dorfman

We will be updating a couple of times a week as noteworthy projects, articles, or art-related info comes our way. For those unfamiliar with our company, Fine Art Shipping is a comprehensive provider of art handling and shipping services to the professional community and to the general public. This is our 26th year in business but our very first blog! We envision this as a place where “civilians” as well as art nerds can come to see what we are up to in the very custom, and sometimes wacky, and always busy, world of art shipping.

We will provide information on art handling techniques and materials as well as links to artists, galleries, museums, exhibitions, and art events that cross our radar. We welcome feedback, suggestions for topics, and related links, always!

The other pages on this blogsite will tell you about our famous Los Angeles to San Francisco shuttle (see SHUTTLE) and give a rundown of our key players (ABOUT US). All other requests for our services information, quote requests, or art shipping queries should be directed to us through our website which offers a choice of ways to contact us and obtain such information. That is basically the “business end” and this is the fun stuff.

At FINE ART SHIPPING we get calls and emails every day from customers who describe their painting or other framed artwork as already “softpacked” or “softwrapped.”

Generically this means, what? Well, most basically it signifies that something is not crated or slat crated or enclosed in a rigid container but is instead, softwrapped. Somehow. With something.

Over the years we have seen “softpacked” interpreted to mean:

• wrapped in a flannel shirt, with or without tape to secure (watch those buttons!)
• plastic bagged in flimsy bags sporting the dry cleaner’s name and address (my favorite)
• used, very used, occasionally chewed, plastic sheeting draped over the frame
• cardboard corners, but otherwise entirely naked
• loose in a box with an afterthought of bubble wrap settled primly over the top (schoolteacher)
• beachballed in bubble wrap, and taped tightly all around as if more couldn’t hurt, but it can (any package you have to cut to open is risky, especially when guessing at the outline of the object within)
• gift tissue paper re-used, glitter and all

Here’s an object wrapped in plastic with a foreign object taped to the outside, potentially damaging the piece – unless it’s part of the piece, on the exterior of the package, with tape all over it.

This one is wrapped in some random plastic material which is too thin to provide adequate protection.

A used box with misleading printing, taped shut after it began losing its rigidity – fine for moving some stuff across town, but not for shipping art or other valuables.

Here is a piece wrapped in thin plastic, sealed with clear tape yellowed with age (clear-on-clear is a headache for the unpacker), and way too much of it – requiring a lot of knife work to remove.

This piece is popping out of its plastic wrap, exposing it to damage and the elements.

The plastic draped over this piece is used, torn, dirty, unsealed, too thin, and has out-of-date labels.

The “diaper paper” shown here is more gentle on some objects than it may appear in the photo, but sitting uncushioned in a flimsy, open cardboard tray leaves the piece open to damage. And a delicate artwork can be hiding under those messy paper folds haphazardly taped.

Not that all “civilian” packing is inadequate: often it is quite good and serviceable for the intended mode of transport.

Our favorite example of ingenious civilian packing is the customer who tells the story of relocating a world class collection of wedgewood china back in the fifties from the rural south up to Los Angeles in her car, without breaking a single of many hundreds of items. The secret archival material? Sanitary napkins! And she invited us to imagine the look on the faces of the pharmacists as she and her grey haired husband looted the shelves of every box they could find…

This collection was many years later packed and crated by FINE ART SHIPPING and sent off to auction at Sotheby’s London. It contained items so rare that the only similar or matching ones are in possession of the royal family.

There is no one single industry standard for “softpacking”, although there are basic guidelines and understanding of what this means. The condition, medium, value and fragility of the item itself along with consideration of the intended mode of transport are key ingredients; there is no one solution for an entire class of artworks.

But by and large a “softpacked” painting to a professional means that the contents, if a flatwork, is wrapped with a moisture barrier, then packed into a custom cardboard box that is created from sheets of cardboard cut to size to surround the artwork on all sides and edges. This is then taped closed and labeled as to the “face” side and correct orientation. This is also referred to as a “slipcase”.

Slipcases may have other ingredients such as:

• foam lining along the bottom of the pack to protect a heavy frame from its own weight
• wrapping of the artwork itself in glassine or dartek archival materials
• double cardboard over the “face” of the package for added protection
• collar wrapping or “shadow” boxing to allow for air circulation and/or to keep packing material from touching the face of textured, damp or unstable artwork
• glasskin taping over real glass to avoid damage to the artwork if the glass breaks in transit (glasskin is essentially oversized masking tape with an easily removable adhesive)

The elegance of a basic cardboard slipcase…

When traveling in the custody of professional art handlers, even a large slipcase like this can be a safe and economical alternative to crating.

Softpacks can take many shapes, and manufactured, double-wall cartons are often the best option for the job.

…even when a little modification is required.

Large or grouped softpacks are often palletized for greater protection in transit.

The custom pallet is a stronger, leaner and more efficient alternative to standard shipping pallets.

As with crating, the most important part of a softpack is the part that isn’t seen until it arrives safely at the destination.

Cardboard isn’t the only material used for rigid softpacks. When an object has special needs but crating isn’t an option, there is still a variety of archival and alternative packing materials to choose from.

It is important to let your art handler know exactly how your artworks will be wrapped when received. “Softpacked” can mean anything, and often does. If your carrier assumes this means slipcased, and you are operating in flannel shirt mode, this can create risk for the object if the service picking up is not prepared to further wrap the artwork or to return it to a warehouse where this can be done.

There are some prefabricated boxes which can be suitable for packing artworks and some which are eminently NOT suitable: we will have fun with those in a future post. Happy packing!

Betsy Dorfman