An exploration of how art acquires its financial value. It explores the artist and his hinterland, subject and style (from abstract art and banality through surrealism and war), "wall-power", provenance and market weather, in which the trade of the art market is examined and at one point compared to the football transfer market.
Philip Hook takes the lid off the world of art dealing to reveal the brilliance, cunning, greed and daring of its practitioners. In a richly anecdotal narrative he describes the rise and occasional fall of the extraordinary men and women who over the centuries have made it their business to sell art to kings, merchants, nobles, entrepreneurs and museums. From its beginnings in Antwerp, where paintings were sometimes sold by weight, to the rich hauteur of the contemporary gallery in London, Paris and New York, art dealing has been about identifying what is intangible but infinitely desirable, and then finding clients for whom it is irresistible. Those who have purveyed art for a living range from tailors, spies and the occasional anarchist to scholars, aristocrats, merchants and connoisseurs, each variously motivated by greed, belief in their own vision of art and its history, or simply the will to win. The cast of characters includes Paul Durand-Ruel, the Impressionists' champion; Herwath Walden, who first brought Modernism into the limelight; Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, high priest of Cubism; Leo Castelli, dealer-midwife to Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art; and Peter Wilson, the charismatic Sotheby's chairman who made the auction room theatre. Philip Hook's history is one of human folly, greed and duplicity, interspersed with ingenuity, inspiration and acts of heroism. Rogues' Gallery is learned, witty and irresistibly readable.
The years leading up to the First World War were the most exciting, frenzied and revolutionary in the history of art. This was the crucible of Modernism, when Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism and finally Abstract Art all developed in quick succession.
There were phenomenal new innovations in avant garde painting and sculpture, above all in Paris where a community of artists, critics and collectors was flourishing.
Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Malevich, Klimt and Schiele all came to prominence during this period, though few understood their genius.
Although extraordinary new works were being created, conventional art still continued to be produced and widely appreciated. Exhibitions - of old masters and of new art - were held to huge public interest, shock and horror. The styles made popular in the nineteenth century held sway and many people''s tastes remained conservative. 1905-1914 saw the biggest boom in prices for old masters ever in history, while most of the avant-garde lived like paupers.
This was a unique generation, though many of their lives were cut tragically short by the outbreak of war. Here Sotheby''s art expert Philip Hook explains how it took less than a decade for everything to change.
Auteur :
Né en 1951, Philip Hook est directeur du département d'art impressionniste et moderne chez Sotheby, à Londres.
Livre :
Un roman policier qui entraîne le lecteur des milieux d'art londoniens et new-yorkais jusqu'au fin fond des steppes russes et scandinaves, mêlant habilement intrigue policière, implications politiques et réminiscences historiques.
