Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- As the stock markets continue to gyrate, the Mary Boone gallery at Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and 57th Street has sold six of John Altoon's ribald watercolors and oils for prices ranging from $10,000 to $60,000.

``I can't say that we've noticed any direct response yet'' to the financial turmoil, said Ron Warren, a gallery director and partner. ``I would expect that we will, but we remain optimistic.''

He said the gallery's usual clients from the financial world have been less ardent.

``They haven't been interested in looking at work or interested in buying it,'' Warren said. ``But I think as things settle down, they will be back.'' The Altoon show is up through Oct. 25.

Other galleries on the city's main uptown art street also report that business isn't bad but not quite as usual.

Camera Obscura

The Bonni Benrubi gallery was well attended on two different afternoons, with people eyeballing and buying camera obscura images by Abelardo Morell priced at $3,000 to $20,000.

``We have sold quite a few pieces to financial people,'' said gallery president Bonni Benrubi. ``I think the blue-chip, tried and true, established work, at least here, is doing really well.''

Emerging or unknown artists are another matter. ``There is less impulse for something that isn't established,'' Benrubi said.

Letting Phones Ring

At the Laurence Miller gallery, which specializes in modern and contemporary photography, director Laurence Miller said clients' reactions to Wall Street's woes have varied.

``We are dealing with a few collectors who are in the highest level of economics and wealth in the country and it doesn't affect them,'' Miller said. He noted, though, that ``clients who are money managers are not answering their phones.''

A survivor of three recessions, Miller said, ``Interestingly, each time, as people scale back, they scale back into photography.''

The gallery currently is showing (through Oct. 25) workaday portraits by documentary photographer Bruce Wrighton, who captured 1950s people, cars and church and tavern interiors in upstate New York. They are priced from $2,000 to $12,000, and Miller said they are selling.

``The smaller, vintage prints are doing well,'' Miller said. The Getty acquired six and the Margolis collection in Miami bought 12.

Retrenching

At the Alexandre gallery, market fluctuations ``haven't affected us at all yet,'' commented owner Philippe Alexandre. He added, though, that ``everything going on now has been in the works for a few months.''

He has made one cautious move by postponing exhibitions of individual artists for the next four to six months because the marketing costs are higher than for shows involving several artists. ``It will be group shows from here on out,'' Alexandre said. He also will concentrate on his secondary market, which includes high-quality U.S. painters of the 1920s to 1940s.

New paintings by Gregory Amenoff are moving more slowly than the artist's last show, which sold out, said Alexandre. Prices range from $2,800 to $22,000.

The Long View

Jane Kallir, co-director of the Galerie St. Etienne, is braced for clients to cut back on their buying. Her family founded the gallery at the end of the Great Depression, and Kallir sounds as if she's as comfortable on Wall Street as on 57th.

``The art market is always what they call a lagging indicator,'' Kallir said. ``It doesn't respond quickly, and that is true in bad times and as well as in good times.''

In the galley's current exhibition, artist Sue Coe depicts the plight of the elephant in paintings that range from $20,000 to $25,000 and drawings from $3,500 to $20,000.

``We already sold two works before the show opened and we have been getting a lot of calls,'' Kallir said. ``I don't see any change.''

Kallir expects some people will cut back, and she's generally less optimistic about contemporary art. ``It's been, shall we say, very `bubbly' for quite a while,'' she said. ``I would expect contemporary work to be more severely hit than older material.''

She also anticipates an upside. ``There are people who, when the dust clears, are going to be saying: `Where can I put my money?' The stock market is dicey, interest rates are low,'' Kallir said. ``So there could also be a flight to quality, which would sustain the market -- at least the secondary market.''

``There is always an upside to things,'' said Warren at the Mary Boone gallery. ``If artists are not able to sell things so readily, they will think less about making work for the market and will ask themselves what they really want to express.''

(Michael Killeen is an art critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Michael Killeen in New York at mkilleen5@verizon.net

Last Updated: October 17, 2008 16:15 EDT