All In the (Antiques) Family

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

With her snakeskin sandal-clad feet propped delicately on a $45,000 mahogany writing table, Carrie Imberman, 29, reflected on her recent decision to join the family business, Kentshire Galleries, a purveyor of antique jewelry and furniture. “You grow up thinking that whatever your family is involved in is kind of dorky,” she said. “Until you realize, I’m not making grommets in a factory. I’m doing something that, to me, is exciting.”

In today’s economy, the idea of joining a family business seems as antique as the furniture Kentshire sells. But, in the Imbermans’ world — the top tier of New York’s fine art and antique dealers — they are not alone. At the Hirschl & Adler art gallery on the Upper East Side, president Stuart Feld brought in his daughter, Elizabeth, to run the decorative arts department. Also in the neighborhood and keeping up a family affair is the framing and restoration company Lowy, which is run by the father-and-son team of Larry and Brad Shar; the furniture dealer Florian Papp, which is helmed by siblings Mindy and William Papp; and the painting gallery Spanierman, headed by Ira Spanierman and his son, Gavin.

What has changed about the family business is that today, the youngest generation is making a deliberate choice to be involved. In a three-generation business — such as Kentshire, where Ms. Imberman works with her 27-year-old brother Matthew, her parents, and her aunt and uncle — the second generations often felt an expectation or pressure to join. As parents now, they are urging their children to explore the options first. As a result, third generations now have the time and opportunity to overcome a few fears before making a choice.

“They never ever wanted to push us into anything,” Ms. Imberman said of her parents, “because they never wanted, if we were unhappy, for us to say, ‘You made us do this.’ Before we made up our mind, they said: ‘Isn’t there anything else you’d like to try?'”

The situation was different for Fred Imberman, Carrie and Matthew’s father. His father asked him to come into the business after his partner left. “He asked if I would come in and help — so I did, and I liked it,” Mr. Imberman said. Mr. Imberman asked his brother-in-law, Bob Israel, to join, too, and they led Kentshire from its wholesale roots into high-end antiques. In the 1980s, their wives launched the jewelry business.

Mr. Shar’s father also pulled him in. Hillard Shar started working at Lowy in the 1930’s. (The firm is named for its original proprietor, Julius Lowy, who died in a car accident in Central Park in 1922.) He was running the business by the time Larry was a child, and he insisted that his son study the trade.

“My father loved his kids,” Mr. Shar said. “And he loved what he did, and he wanted to share it. On weekends, rather than play baseball or basketball the entire day, I had to go in and watch the carvers and the gilders and the finishers. Then I had to try my hand at it.” He worked at Lowy all through high school, and when he graduated from Brandeis, he came back to New York and joined the firm.

But the younger crew takes a few years to try out other things. Ms. Feld worked for two years in fashion marketing before graduate school and then joining her father at Hirschl & Adler.

Carrie and Matthew Imberman spent several years in the arts: Carrie worked in a costume shop and as a freelance prop and set stylist; Matthew, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at a contemporary gallery. Joining their parents at Kentshire was always in the back of their minds but for that reason, it took a while to realize that they couldn’t take it for granted.

“You think, ‘Well, it’s always going to be there,'” Ms. Imberman said. “But then you realize: It’s not really going to be there unless I am the one who maintains it and keeps it there.”

The business also happened to combine her interests in jewelry and design, but the clincher was her brother. “The final, deciding factor was when Matthew said he was going to take the plunge,” she said. “Then it didn’t just seem like a copout. It seemed like something that he and I could make into a worthwhile, really exciting thing.”

For the younger generation, a major responsibility becomes helping the business change with the times. At Lowy, the tech-savvy Brad Shar, 34, built an inventory database that catalogues about 4,000 frames from the 15th to the 20th centuries. He also oversaw the development of LowyScan, a program that allows him virtually to put a painting into one of Lowy’s frames and see what it looks like.

At Hirschl & Adler, Ms. Feld, 32, has been a major part of efforts to cultivate younger clients. A recent shift in emphasis helped: Hirschl & Adler Modern, a side of the business that used to deal in 20th-century avantgarde artists like Cy Twombly and Louise Nevelson, now focuses instead on contemporary realism. “There’s something about it that’s universally appealing,” Ms. Feld said, “and it’s also not so hard on the pocketbook.” The work in H & A Modern ranges from $1500 to about $70,000; the majority is between $10,000 and $15,000.

H & A Modern is not courting young buyers “who are going to auctions and spending $1.5 million on the most avant-garde purple polka dot on a black background,” Ms. Feld said. “We’re talking about people who want to start a small art collection, and we’re helping them identify what areas they can afford to collect in, and collect well.”

Matthew and Carrie Imberman have some ideas for the medium-range future at Kentshire, too. While stressing that their plans are still only theoretical, the Imbermans said they would like to begin purchasing some modern furniture and turning the seventh floor of the building into a space where they can experiment with pairing pieces from different periods together. It’s a development based on their aesthetic interests, as well as the mix-and-match approach now popular in decorating.

“Part of what we’re after is not only to show that we have eclectic taste and can make a look out of all this stuff, but also that old furniture doesn’t have to look old,” Mr. Imberman said. “It’s all about how you arrange things.”

While their parents have been responsive, the siblings are proceeding with caution. Along with the pleasure of contributing to a family enterprise comes a sense of responsibility, the Imbermans said, both to their actual family and to their family of employees.

“You don’t come into something that’s been going for 60 years and say, ‘How can I mess this up?'” Mr. Imberman said. “I wouldn’t want it not to be an option” for his children.


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