AFTER years of planning and two cancellations, last week Seafair finally got under way when David Lester's luxury floating art fair, the 238ft yacht Grande Luxe, set sail from Miami for Greenwich, Connecticut.
This ambitious project is arguably the most daring innovation in the art dealing world for some years and the international trade has been carefully monitoring its progress.
The concept was mooted by Florida-based art entrepreneur David Lester around four years ago as a revolutionary method of retailing art.
His luxury yacht will spend the year plying the Eastern seaboard of the United States stopping at 38 selected ports where extremely wealthy, invitation-only guests come aboard to wine, dine and hopefully shop for art and antiques in the most luxurious possible ambience. The boat will not be open to the general public.
For each month-long leg dealers will offer stock from booths arrayed over three of the ship's five decks.
Seafair starts its first leg from September 25 to 30 at Greenwich, Connecticut, then moves to Point Washington/ Oyster Bay Long Island from October 3 to 7; New York City from October 9 to 14 and Norwalk/Westport, Connecticut from October 17 to 21.
Mr Lester needs a complement of 28 exhibiting dealers and last week he had signed up 26 for the maiden voyage and was confident of adding another two before September 25.
Among those taking part in the first leg are Cohen & Cohen, Two Zero C Applied Art, Mallett, Pelham Galleries, Silver Fund, John Mitchell, David Morris and Berry-Hill Galleries. Most observers were initially wary of the ambitious Seafair enterprise. The planning was not without problems - a hike in the price of steel and hurricanes among them - and the launch last December had to be cancelled, as did a second date early in the summer.
Decoration and final touching up to the highest standard were continuing up to last week, and Mr Lester did not find it as easy to drum up exhibitors as he might have thought. With booth rents of up to $30,000 a week this may not be surprising. Seafair is a $50m project with reputed annual running costs of around $15m-20m.
But Lester has many fans in the international art world following his successful launch and establishment of the Palm Beach fair in his home state.
The test will be to see if Lester can keep his floating art extravaganza full for the whole year. But so far he has proved doubters wrong.
By David Moss
