Rogues and Scholars Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945–2000
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
James Stourton is a British art historian, a former Chairman of Sotheby's UK and the author of Great Houses of London, British Embassies, and the authorized biography of Kenneth Clark. Stourton frequently lectures to Cambridge University History of Art Faculty, Sotheby's Institute of Education and The Art Fund, and is a senior fellow of the Institute of Historical Research. He also sits on the Heritage Memorial Fund, a government panel which meets to decide what constitutes heritage and should be saved for the nation.James Stourton is an excellent art historian and brilliant storyteller; a heady combination that makes Rogues & Scholars the must-read art book of the year.
Will Gompertz
A perceptive, authoritative and highly readable account of the golden age of the British art market.
Philip Hook
With panache and characteristically elegant penmanship, James Stourton throws open the doors to a riveting chapter in the history of art in which glamorous eccentricities, serious scholarship and a good deal of swindling cohabit... Stourton brings us a gripping and thoroughly researched chronicle of the post-war art market, punctuated with the occasional ‘you couldn’t make this up’ moment. <i>Rogues & Scholars</i> is just as entertaining as it is educational.
Wolf Burchard
Riveting and gossipy
- Laura Freeman, The Times *Books of the Year*
An erudite and authoritative history of the London art market from World War II to our century. Outstanding in its own field, <i>Rogues and Scholars</i> nears Anthony Bourdain’s tell-all <i>Kitchen Confidential</i>.
New York Times Book Review
<p>Praise for James Stourton's <i>Heritage</i>:<br /><br />[A] huge, energetic and tightly written tome on the two-and-half-century history of conservation battles in our homeland... A masterful, dynamic and extremely readable survey of one the major issues of our times. Or all times</p>
Literary Review
<i>It not only covers the conservation and protection of our buildings and landscapes, but also the wider cultural aspects</i>
This England
<i>Compelling and thought-provoking, this book not only explores how Britain's rich and diverse heritage has been conserved (and in some cases destroyed) in the past, but offers a ray of hope for its future</i>
The Observer
A Times Best Art Book of the Year, 2024
'A riot of a book' – Country Life's Books of the Year, 2024
The modern art market was born on a single night. On 15 October 1958 Sotheby’s of Bond Street staged an ‘event sale’ of Impressionist paintings from the collection of an American banker, Erwin Goldschmidt: three Manets, two Cézannes, one Van Gogh and a Renoir. Movie stars and other celebrities attended in black tie and saw the seven lots go for £781,000 – at the time the highest price for a single art sale.
Overnight, London became the world centre of the art market and Sotheby’s an international auction house. The event signalled a shift in power from dealers to auctioneers and pointed the way for Impressionist paintings to dominate the market for the next forty years. In this climate Sotheby’s and Christie’s became a great business duopoly – as aggressive, dominant and competitive in the field of art sales as Pepsi and Coca-Cola were in soft drinks. The resulting expansion of the market was accompanied by rocketing prices, colourful scandals and legal dramas. Over the decades, London transformed itself from a place of old master sales to a revitalised centre of contemporary art, a process crowned by the opening of Tate Modern in 2000.
James Stourton tells the story of the London art market from the immediate postwar period to the turn of the millennium in engaging and fast-paced style, populating his richly entertaining narrative with a glorious rogues’ gallery of clever amateurs, eccentric scholars, brilliant emigrés, cockney traders and grandees with a flair for the deal.