ART ON THE MOVE The delicate

The Art of Moving

A Picasso in the living room? When the contents are more valuable than the house itself, who do you call? Anne Cuthbertson finds out

PHOTOGRAPH : SHUTTERSTOCK W ho would have thought moving four items across London from house to house would be worth losing sleep over. Only when the items are works of fine art worth £50 million, it’s a different matter.

This is just one example of the work recently undertaken by fine art shipping ‘white glove’ specialist logistics firm Queen’s. “It’s amazing when a client comes to you like that,” says James Quirk, a spokesman for the company, based just off Oxford Street. “Yet it’s surprisingly common that the artwork is more expensive than their houses. A lot of our clients have huge collections that run into the 100s and may have an artwork worth £20m in their living room, a few Picassos up on the walls.”

And it’s not just art that needs the kid-glove treatment. Clients are often collectors so clocks and antique furniture are often moved directly from auction to house. “We had a client from America who had a large collection of Hermès Birkin bags – vast. They wanted those handled with care, they were the client’s pride and joy. They were all catalogued and itemised and put in the huge walk-in wardrobe and colour coded,” recalls Quirk. “We’ve also moved Henry Moore sculptures in their gardens, worth a vast amount. One client moving from the US to Holland Park had a large collection of rare books, worth over £1m, including a lot of first editions and family heirlooms.”

Although most of the moves are within London and its outer suburbs, in the past 18 months, the company has seen a lot of clients moving out to the country, to the Cotswolds, Surrey and Kent. “They have decided to move more things out there to make it as lovely as their main home,” notes Quirk. “Clients have been purchasing large amounts of artwork in lockdown.”

Moves overseas have also been a feature in recent months. “We have done a few to Ibiza now. A London client bought a house in Ibiza during the pandemic, so we put some items into our storage facility and then worked with their team in Ibiza.” When buying a property at a high price, it often involves buying agents and tax advisors, but people don’t realise when they get further down the line that what they are moving is more valuable. The business started solely operating in fine art logistics, packing, collecting, transporting artwork for galleries, including many of the major London galleries and museums. “As that part of the business evolved, we had a number of private clients request we assist with moves, as a lot have residences in the UK and abroad,” says Quirk. They then

We had a client from started doing relocations as a America who had a vast collection of Hermès separate operation and then more business to business – interior design installations, Birkin bags. They wanted delivered to a storage facility those handled with care and then to the client. The devil is always in the detail. Specific paintings require different packing. “When you have raised paint on a canvas that needs to be packed differently, the same with oil versus acrylic,” says Quirk. If an item is going on a plane, custom-made crates are used. Eco-friendly packaging is used wherever possible and the team use black biodegradable gloves. Clients may never even see the packaging – this is an end to end service, from customs and inventory paperwork to working with interior designers to install the item in its final position. Artists rely on the expertise of such companies. Pack & Send works with many high profile artists, including Luke Jerram who used Pack & Send to transport his exceedingly fragile ‘Museum of the Moon’ giant moon installation around the world as well as his Glass Microbiology works. But not everyone takes such precautions. “We had a lady who came to us on the bus and got a Picasso out of a plastic bag,” says Quirk. “We were all a bit perplexed, and packed it properly for her!” L queensfi neart.com; packsend.co.uk