Art and Commerce

How did the United States become not only the leading contemporary art scene in the world, but also the leading market for art? The answer has to do not only with the talents of American artists or even the size of the American economy, but also--and especially--the skills and entrepreneurship of American art dealers. Their story has not been told...until now. Landscape with Figures is the first history of art dealing in the United States, following the profession from eighteenth-century portrait and picture salesmen in the colonies to the high-profile, jet-set gallery owners of today. Providing anecdotal and carefully researched biographies of the prominent dealers from more than two centuries of trade, author Malcolm Goldstein shows how magnanimous personalities and social networking helped to shape the way Americans have bought and valued art. These dealers range from Michael Paff, whose enthusiasm often overshadowed his expertise but nonetheless helped him sell faux Old Master paintings to major collectors in the early nineteenth century; to the imperious Joseph Duveen, dealer to magnates like Henry Clay Frick; to visionary Leo Castelli, who helped to usher in a revolution in modern art during the 1960s by showing such avant-garde artists as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol. Goldstein also shows that the American art trade, while male-dominated, has been galvanized by female dealers, including the inimitable Edith Gregor Halpert, Peggy Guggenheim, and Mary Boone. Their fascinating stories unfold in the context of world art history, the rise of major art institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum, and the growing zeal of art collectors who would eventually pay millions for individual works of art. Unprecedented and critical to understanding today's art world, Landscape with Figures is a must for artists, art history students, and art lovers.

"A beautiful, original, and very provocative book-a model of creative research. Nathalie Heinich makes a very significant contribution to the sociological analysis of artistic value and to the sociology of culture more generally. She propose[s] a critique of genius theory that will strongly shape the way we think about cultural genius."--Michele Lamont, Princeton University "A beautiful, original, and provocative book--a model of creative research. Nathalie Heinich makes a very significant contribution to the sociological analysis of artistic value and to the sociology of culture more generally. [She] propose[s] a critique of genius theory that will strongly shape the way we think about cultural genius."--Michèle Lamont, Princeton University "With an argument that is both imaginative and forceful, [this book] shows not only how we make our heroes but also why we need them."--Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, Columbia University.

Most artists earn very little. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of aspiring young artists. Do they give to the arts willingly or unknowingly? Governments and other institutions also give to the arts, to raise the low incomes. But their support is ineffective: subsidies only increase the artists' poverty. The economy of the arts is exceptional. Although the arts operate successfully in the marketplace, their natural affinity is with gift-giving, rather than with commercial exchange. People believe that artists are selflessly dedicated to art, that price does not reflect quality, and that the arts are free. But is it true? This unconventional multidisciplinary analysis explains the exceptional economy of the arts. Insightful illustrations from the practice of a visual artist support the analysis.

In this finely illustrated, major history of American and European art of the past quarter century, Irving Sandler shows how new directions in art emerged in the 1960s -- Post Minimal styles, Pattern and Decoration Painting, and New Image Painting -- through the 1980s -- Neo-Expressionism, Media Deconstruction, and Commodity Art. Sandler discusses the major and minor artists and their works, movements, ideas, attitudes, and styles, and places them in the social and cultural context of the period. He also covers Postmodernist art theory, the art market, and consumer society.

Fully documented and clearly written, Sandler's book is essential for understanding the art of this period.

This extensively revised edition of Harvey and Meisel's valuable specialized work describes and analyses the law as it applies to auctions and sales. As such it will appeal to anyone connected with the auctioneering world, including agricultural auctioneers, car auctioneers, property auctioneers, and fine art auctioneers. This edition includes analysis of new English cases and the growing body of European and international law affecting auctions and sales. It is both a practical book of reference and a serious academic study of a neglected yet fascinating subject.

Does a market economy encourage or discourage music, literature, and the visual arts? Do economic forces of supply and demand help or harm the pursuit of creativity? This book seeks to redress the current intellectual and popular balance and to encourage a more favorable attitude towards the commercialization of culture that we associate with modern life.

This is the first book to cover not only the economics of the fine arts and performing arts, but also public policy toward the arts at federal, state, and local levels in the United States. The second edition offers greater coverage of the international arts sector. The work will interest academic readers as a supplementary text on the sociology of the arts, as well as general readers seeking a systematic analysis of the economics of the arts. Theoretical concepts are developed from scratch so that readers with no background in economics can follow the argument.

Nazi art looting has been the subject of enormous international attention in recent years, and the topic of two history bestsellers, Hector Feliciano's The Lost Museum and Lynn Nicholas's The Rape of Europa. But such books leave us wondering: What made thoughtful, educated, artistic men and women decide to put their talents in the service of a brutal and inhuman regime? This question is the starting point for The Faustian Bargain, Jonathan Petropoulos's study of the key figures in the art world of Nazi Germany. Petropoulos follows the careers of these prominent individuals who like Faust, that German archetype, chose to pursue artistic ends through collaboration with diabolical forces. Readers meet Ernst Buchner, the distinguished museum director and expert on Old Master paintings who "repatriated" the Van Eyck brother's Ghent altarpiece to Germany, and Karl Haberstock, an art dealer who filled German museums with works bought virtually at gunpoint from Jewish collectors. Robert Scholz, the leading art critic in the Third Reich, became an officer in the chief art looting unit in France and Kajetan Muhlmann--a leading art historian--was probably the single most prolific art plunderer in the war (and arguably in history). Finally, there is Arno Breker, a gifted artist who exchanged his modernist style for monumental realism and became Hitler's favorite sculptor. If it is striking that these educated men became part of the Nazi machine, it is more remarkable that most of them rehabilitated their careers and lived comfortably after the war. Petropoulos has discovered a network of these rehabilitated experts that flourished in the postwar period, and he argues that this is a key to the tens of thousands of looted artworks that are still "missing" today. Based on previously unreleased information and recently declassified documents, The Faustian Bargain is a gripping read about the art world during this period, and a fascinating examination of the intense relationship between culture and politics in the Third Reich.