Breakfast At Sothebys

Download or read book Breakfast at Sotheby's written by Philip Hook and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2014-10-02 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A witty journey through the wonderfully tumultuous world of art dealers and markets—organized in the style of a dictionary, complete with a glossary.” —Interview Two questions are key to experiencing a work of art in a museum or exhibition: 1.) Do I like it? 2.) Who’s it by? You need quite a few more questions if you’re in an auction room or dealer’s gallery, however. You’ll find yourself asking, How much is it worth? How much will it be worth in five or ten years? And finally, what will people think of me if they see it hanging on my wall? Breakfast at Sotheby’s is not only a guide to finding the answers to such questions, but also a glimpse into the rarely discussed financial side of the art world. Based on author Philip Hook’s thirty-five years of experience in the art market, the book explores various shades of artist (including -isms, Gericault, and suicides), subject and style (from abstract art and banality through surrealism and war), “wall-power,” provenance, and market weather. Comic, revealing, piquant, splendid, and occasionally absurd, Breakfast at Sotheby’s is a book of pleasure and intelligent observation, as engaged with art as it is with the world that surrounds it. “A breezy, whimsical and often wry compendium, chock-full of hard-won wisdom about what makes someone spend millions of dollars to buy an artwork at auction.” —The New York Times “A winner. Readers will learn more about the modern art market in this simple book than in any college course.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review

Download or read book Rogues' Gallery written by Philip Hook and published by The Experiment. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “expert and elegantly written” book reveals how dealers have been a major force in art history from the Renaissance to the avant garde (The Guardian, UK). Philip Hook’s riveting narrative takes us from the early days of art dealing in Antwerp, where paintings were sold by weight, to the unassailable hauteur of contemporary galleries in New York, London, Paris, and beyond. Along the way, we meet a surprisingly wide-ranging cast of characters—from tailors, spies, and the occasional anarchist to scholars, aristocrats, and connoisseurs, some compelled by greed, some by their own vision of art—and some by the art of the deal. Among them are Joseph Duveen, who almost single-handedly brought the Old Masters to America; Paul Durand-Ruel, the Impressionists’ champion; 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 a theater of the auction room. Full of unforgettable anecdotes and astute insight, Rogue’s Gallery offers “a front-row seat and a backstage pass to this arcane and obsessively secretive profession” (Hannah Rothschild, Mail on Sunday, UK).

Download or read book Art of the Extreme 1905-1914 written by Philip Hook and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR The ten years leading up to the First World War were the most exciting, frenzied and revolutionary in the history of art. They were the crucible of Modernism, when Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism and Abstract Art all burst forth. Simultaneously the Old Master market boomed, and art itself was politically weaponised in advance of approaching war. What was the conventional art against which Modernism was rebelling? Why did avant-garde artists become so obsessed with themselves? What persuaded a few bold collectors to buy difficult modern art? And why did others pay so much money for Old Masters? Art expert Philip Hook brings to bear a unique perspective on the art of a unique and extreme decade.

Download or read book An Object of Beauty written by Steve Martin and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the NYC art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights--and, at times, the dark lows--of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today.

Download or read book Great Houses of London written by James Stourton and published by Frances Lincoln. This book was released on 2022-10-04 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great Houses of London tells the stories of some of the grandest and most fascinating houses in this historic city, from their famous owners and occupants to their renovations and the many riches held within each.

Download or read book The Art of the Steal written by Christopher Mason and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2005-05-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Art of the Steal tells the story of several larger-than-life figures - the billionaire tycoon Alfred Taubman; the most powerful woman in the art world, Dede Brooks; and the wily British executive Christopher Davidge - who conspired to cheat their clients out of millions of dollars. It offers an unprecedented look inside this secretive, glamorous, gold-plated industry, describing just how Sotheby's and Christie's grew from clubby, aristocratic businesses into slick international corporations. And it shows how the groundwork for the most recent illegal activities was laid decades before the perpetrators were caught by federal prosecutors.

Download or read book Seven Days in the Art World written by Sarah Thornton and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-11-17 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art. The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion. In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.