Burnsville’s Doubletake Gallery a Matchmaker for Famed Artworks

If you hunger for world-class art, but a weekend jaunt to the Louvre or New York's MOMA isn't in the cards, there's always the Doubletake Gallery in Burnsville.

At first glance, the unassuming Burnsville Showcase Building might not seem to be a place worthy of mention in the same breath as the world's famous repositories of art. But for the past seven years, rare works by artists Salvador Dali, Picasso and Marc Chagall have come to be an everyday sight here.

Doubletake is an art brokerage—a place where people can sell artworks from their personal collections to buyers who are looking for prize pieces. Working from this space to accommodate an international clientele, most sales are conducted through Doubletake’s website, which offers buyers a tour of the gallery, and close-up looks at the works for sale. The gallery has shipped works to every continent in the world, excluding only Antarctica.

As well as being art matchmakers, a major role Doubletake Gallery plays in these transactions is to insure the quality of the pieces, making sure the works are authentic, their condition pristine. Pieces purchased through the gallery are sold with their lineage guaranteed.

"That’s why people trust us,” said broker Brendan Lindberg. “We are hands-on, taking care of the shipping, packaging, everything really.”

Works by the famed surrealist Salvador Dali are the gallery's specialty; co-owner Robert Varner is a vault of knowledge about the artist. A Dali piece that Varner recently examined proved to be in less-than-perfect condition.

“This is a piece printed on vellum, which is like an animal skin. You can see where tape in this corner discolored the work, and there used to be precious stones on it, which are missing, so this piece has lost much of its value,” he said.

“But if this piece was sold to someone on eBay, for example, and they didn’t know any better, they would think it was fantastic, not know any differently. We are here to ensure that our buyers are getting a good quality piece,” Varner said.

Varner and Lindberg have each been in the art business for over two decades - experience that comes in handy when doing such detective work. They also have an extensive collection of research materials and sometimes consult other experts.

The gallery currently is displaying works by Marc Chagall, Peter Max, and LeRoy Neiman—the St. Paul artist known for painting vibrant, colorful athletic images.

An original oil of Neiman’s depicting the Minnesota Gophers versus the Iowa Hawkeyes, which was created to commemorate the opening of the Metrodome, hangs on the wall.

“People bring in pieces that want to sell on consignment,” Varner said. “That’s what is displayed on the walls. We also have storage in the back, drawers full of works.” The collection of rare pieces on hand is astonishing, with an original Andy Warhol laying carefully in a drawer, a signed Norman Rockwell on the wall.

The Internet has proven invaluable to Doubletake’s business model, with their website getting about 5 million views a month. Varner said they were among the first art brokers to sell through a website, starting in 1996, and have a live camera online to tour the gallery. They even have a “weather cam,” which shows the view of the Minnesota River Valley from Doubletake, because Varner said clients often want to know what the weather is like.

Varner said that in the last few years, with the economic downturn, the marketplace has seen a drastic change, with many people needing to sell. The purchasing end of the equation, however, has remained strong.

"There are always buyers out there if the price is right," Varner said. "Right now, those deals are out there, because people are looking to get whatever they can.”

A question that they get asked often is whether people really do find valuable works in their attics or at garage sales. Answer: “Yes, that scenario has happened about six times today!” Lindberg said.

Matching the perfect buyer and seller can bring great satisfaction. One example stood out especially for Varner: “I had a couple call me three or four years ago, who had a Norman Rockwell piece called 'High Dive.' That particular work shows a little boy leaning over the edge of the high dive, looking very scared.

"This couple really needed to sell. I put the piece on our website and a couple days later I had a call from one of our collectors in California, who said, I have to own it. It turns out that it was her father as a little boy that Norman Rockwell used as a model, and she had been looking for that piece for a very long time.

"That was such a perfect match where both the buyer and seller ended up very happy. We have stories like that that happen quite often,” he said.