Lucie Kitchener, the CEO of stalled design honest Masterpiece London, which exhibits works by vintage sellers and designers, stepped down from the function in December, a consultant for the honest’s mother or father firm MCH Group instructed ARTnews just lately. The departure was the newest shift for Masterpiece, which has not staged a good since 2022; the MCH consultant mentioned that “future plans are underneath assessment” for the model, although additional particulars weren’t offered.
In 2023, MCH, the Swiss occasions firm that additionally owns Art Basel, introduced in regulatory filings that it was cancelling that 12 months’s version of Masterpiece and that the honest wouldn’t run once more in its present type, because it had been shedding cash since not less than 2020.
Two years earlier than that, in 2021, MCH’s administrators reported in monetary filings they anticipated Masterpiece London to “return to profitability” after recovering from the pandemic cancellation of the 2020 honest. That didn’t find yourself occurring. In subsequent stories, MCH mentioned that Masterpiece suffered a £2.2 million revenue loss in 2022 and one other £2 million in 2023. MCH reported that it was working the design honest with a £2.6 million mortgage from the accounts of its most profitable honest, its annual Basel version.
In 2022, the final 12 months the honest ran, Masterpiece reported producing $5.9 million from that 12 months’s version, solely 2 p.c above the prices it spent to function the honest. On the time, MCH had been attempting to construct the honest’s sponsorship enterprise, courting heritage manufacturers with ties to Outdated Masters just like the Wallace Assortment. Nevertheless, these companions accounted for under 15 p.c of the honest’s income that 12 months and wasn’t almost sufficient to offset the excessive working prices. In June and July of that 12 months, 4 board members resigned from their roles on the honest.
After MCH introduced the cancellation of the 2023 version, former workers of Masterpiece left the honest to determine the artwork, antiques and design honest Treasure Home Truthful. Round 40 galleries that have been planning on collaborating in Masterpiece switched to the brand new honest. Treasure Home will maintain its third version this June, regardless of quietly reporting that it too was in a loss-making place, with a £50,000 deficit in the summertime of final 12 months, in response to UK monetary filings.
MCH has not but given up on Masterpiece nonetheless, disclosing in public filings that it plans to retain the Masterpiece’s trademark and model, however to reconfigure a “new idea” for the honest. Thus far, representatives nonetheless concerned in possession of the model haven’t publicly talked about these plans are. MCH owns a competing American model, Design Miami, income for which is undisclosed.
TEFAF, a long-running competitor honest that features design, is ready for its 2025 version in Maastricht in March.
