ART MARKET / Attraction of opposites: The old-guard Wildensteins have joined forces with self-made dealer Arnie Glimcher in New York. What are these unlikely partners up to?

IT WAS the first time I had dared put my head inside the Wildenstein Gallery in uptown New York. From the soft-carpeted entrance hall with its pillars and flunkies, a curving stairway - copied from the Wildensteins' family home in Paris - rises to exhibition rooms and offices. A vast lift, built to accommodate 10ft-broad Old Masters, is elegantly carved with fruit and foliage.

The room where the very richest clients are persuaded to part with millions, is hung on three sides with dark red velvet curtains. Guy Wildenstein, the 47-year-old president of the New York operation, showed me how these could be drawn back to reveal one great painting on each wall - a touch of theatre that can help push a canny businessman into parting with his money.

The Wildensteins are French but have had a gallery in New York since 1903, selling important Old Masters and Impressionist paintings. They do more than just sell art; they influence - you could almost say manipulate - the art market. They can provide pictures by most of the great names in art history and represent the very grandest old money in the art world.

That's what has made their decision to join forces with the toughest up-and-coming contemporary art dealer in New York, Arne Glimcher of the Pace Gallery, an astonishment to the rest of the art world. It's the talk of the town, and propelled me through the door of the Wildenstein mini-palace in the hope of finding out what was up. The two galleries have announced the formation of a new contemporary art dealership called Pace/Wildenstein.

The art world is, of course, bubbling with explanations of what is happening, most of them contradictory. The two operations are so famous, so successful and so totally different in style that the link between them is intriguing. What seems to be happening is that the Wildensteins have bought their way into the 20th century. Meanwhile, Glimcher, who represents a good proportion of the bestselling artists of the post-war period (together with three of Picasso's heirs, Henry Moore's daughter and the Rothko and Dubuffet estates) gets massive new capital backing and access to Wildenstein's galleries abroad. The Wildensteins have apparently bought 49 per cent of Pace, while the Pace/Wildenstein set-up will break new ground with the international marketing of contemporary art. New galleries are planned in Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

The first Wildenstein, Nathan, was born in Alsace and trained as a tailor. He made his way to Paris in the 1870s and, with a natural eye for pictures, rose to a position of pre-eminence in the French market. He opened his first New York gallery in 1903, launched the family's close involvement with horse racing and died in 1934.

His son Georges took over, a very shy man, passionately interested in books and art history. He realised the importance of archives that would tell people instantly where important pictures were, and of publications that would encourage clients to buy. He founded the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and wrote catalogues of the complete works of Manet, Chardin, Ingres, Fragonard and others.

At his death in 1963 his son Daniel became head of the firm. He is also the author of several catalogues raisonnes - Boucher, Monet etc - and he set up the non-profit-making Wildenstein Institute in Paris which is devoted to art historical research and the publication of catalogues. Daniel, now 76, is handing over the reins to his two sons, Alec (52) and Guy. I met them in their New York gallery two weeks ago. Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they share their grandfather's office, with two little desks side by side.

Guy's real passion is polo - he runs a team called the Diables Bleus and often plays with the Prince of Wales. Alec's real passion is for his ranch in Kenya. They are princes of the art market. Their quiet charm, perfectly cut suits and beautiful manners echo the style of the highest echelons of the old world.

Nothing could so clearly contrast with Glimcher, the self-made man, who lives on his charm and his nerves - always ducking, diving and seeking a better deal than the last.

He is the son of a Minnesota cattle-rancher, studied at college to be a painter and started his first gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1961 with dollars 2,400 borrowed from his brother. His success has lain in marketing contemporary artists; there are many apartments on Park Avenue with exclusively Glimcher art collections. He is also big in Hollywood.

In 1984 it was publicly demonstrated that he is also a consummate actor. He worked as consultant on the art market scenes in the movie Legal Eagles, and was given a vignette part bidding at an auction. The camera loved him. Since then he has become more involved in the movie business. He produced Gorillas in the Mist and The Good Mother and directed The Mambo Kings. With this new interest, he is thought to have wanted to take a chunk of capital out of his art dealing business.

The Wildensteins, with whom he had mounted several exhibitions, and reputedly tied up several other deals, appeared to be the perfect partners. The best guess circulating in New York is that the Wildenstein family has paid around dollars 50m for its share in the Pace Gallery's business.

The plush Bond Street gallery which, up to now, has been the main European outlet for Wildenstein's very expensive Impressionists and Old Masters (the Paris gallery was closed in the 1930s) looks set for a new lease of life. There will be exhibitions of Julian Schnabel, the controversial artist who paints on broken crockery; Donald Judd, the minimalist master of painted bookshelves; Dan Flavin, who does things with brightly lit neon; and others of the same ilk.

It is also a lucky piece of timing as far as the Henry Moore estate is concerned. Moore's daughter Mary signed up with Pace a few months ago and exhibitions of sculpture from the estate are now likely to be mounted in London. Her deal with Pace reputedly involved Glimcher in a large capital outlay on sculptures for future sale.

It has been suggested that the Wildensteins put up a good deal of the money, which is the reason for formalising a link between the galleries. We can also look forward to seeing work from the estates of Picasso, Dubuffet, and Rothko in London.-