"Art is well known as a game in which one pays for the right to hang on his walls someone else's mental troubles embodied in paint. A game which more often than not leads to expense and fascinates its small circle of devotees who are all convinced that the world needs it," -C. Block
In "Seven Days in the Art World" we get a glimpse at the behind the scene aspects of the art world in the boom years of 2002 to 2007 from the perspective of a self proclaimed “cat on the prowl.” Actually, Ms. Sarah Thornton, a London-based freelance writer with a background in sociology, tells in a video in her website, that it took her “five years” to complete the seven day journey which forms the structure of her book (Is five years seven days in cat years?)
She begins her day capturing vividly an adrenaline-fueled auction at Christie's in New York. She then takes us on journeys to Japan, L.A., London, New York, Switzerland and finally, Venice for the Biennale. Her aggressive approach, the cat on the prowl “curious and interactive but not threatening” gives Ms. Thornton an enviable level of access which makes for good and interesting reading. Nevertheless, Curiosity, as they say, killed the cat, and eventually, the cat's perspective and skepticism becomes lost and it is apparent that Sarah Thornton becomes an insider. The “seven day glimpse” of the Art World that we get in Ms. Thornton's book is perhaps the last over-the-shoulder look at a world about to be devastated by an economic downturn of catastrophic proportions, let's just hope we don't turn into pillars of salt!
Catherine the Great of Russia recognized that Art, paintings of the "Great Masters" in particular, were considered barometers of taste and "civilization." Art, she felt, was necessary to elevate the standards of culture. Thus with help of connoisseurs, and under tutelage from her philosopher friend Voltaire, Catherine the Great went about buying full collections of pictures from Europe by the boatload. Her acquisitions became the cornerstone of her beloved Hermitage.
The United States of America, a relatively "young" country coming of age towards the end of the nineteenth century was to undergo a similar realization. Wealthy captains of industry like railroad financier Henry Gurdon Marquand, and J. P. Morgan, H.O. Havermeyer became competitors for "Old Master's Jewels" encouraged by connoisseurs like Bernard Berenson, and dealers like Knodler, and the notorious Henry Duveen, they set about endowing the nation with "artistic assets worthy of its new empire."
Although not a new concept ( Many books have been written in a similar vein like "The Proud Possessors" and individual monographs on Mr. Frick, and others) Ms. Saltzman's book is engaging, well researched, and if you are interested in a "social history" of the United States told through the lives of the "elite" of the Gilded Age, this is a fun and entertaining book, hard to put down.
"The remarkable book begins with al the dramatic immediacy of a Blockbuster movie. Peter Watson takes us behind the scenes at the Christie's auction where van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold for a word record price of $ 82.5 million. ...The author then turns back the clock to trace the rise of the art market from three key events that too place in Paris, New York and London in 1882..."
The Girl with the Gallery: Edith Gregor Halpert and the Making of the Modern Art Market by Lindasay Pollock, 2006 Public Affairs, New York.
"In the Girl With the Gallery, journalist Lindsay Pollock brings Halpert and her era vividly back to life. She delves deep into the passion and power of this remarkable woman, revealing how a penniless Russian Jewish immigrant--armed with only a Harlem puclic-school education, a few years in the working world, and an abundance of determination and charisma--made it her mission to fight for American art and artists."
New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century, by Jed Perl, 2005, Knopf
"A fascinating, panoramic exploration of art and culture in mid-twentieth-century New York City from one of our most important and influential critics. New Art City takes us from the solitude of the artist's studio to the uproarious bars where artists gathered...There are legendary figures --Jackson Pollock, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Jopseph Cornell.."
About Modern Art : Critical Essays 1948-1997by David Sylvester, 1997 Henry Holt
"David Sylvester's writings about many of the century's major artists are exhibited here in a brilliant and witty retrospective that reveals the author's personal involvement with painting a d sculpture over a fifty-year period."
"A fascinating meditation on art and personality. Patricia Vigderman's exploration of Isabella Stewart Gardner's legacy of luxury and willfulness."
Tales From the Art Crypt:The Painters, the Museums, the Curators, the auctions, the Art. by Richard Feigen, 2000, Knopf
"Richard Feigen's fifty years in the art world have given him a unique perspective on its inhabitants and habits. He writes about the painters he has known and represented, and about others whose work he has collected."
"From Holbein to Hockney, from Norman Rockwell to Pablo Picasso, from sixteenth-century Rome to 1980's SoHo, Robert Hughes looks with love, loathing, warmth, with and authority at a wide range of art and artists, good, bad, past and present."
High Art Lite, British Art in the 1990s by Julian Stallabrass, 1999, Verso, London, New York.
"Julian Stallabrass has written a sustained analysis of the British art scene, exploring the reasons for its popularity, the altered structure of the art world, and examiining in detail the work of the leading figures. He also explores the reasons for art criticism's so far limited purchase on this art."
