Two things happened last month that served for me as contradictory bellwethers for the current state of the market for 19th century American art. The first was the annual meeting of the Appraisers Association of America. The second was the American auctions. I should...

Last month the Pursuits section of Bloomberg.com published an article entitled “That $100,000 Painting Bought to Flip Is Now Worth About $20,000.” The article by Katya Kazakina detailed the travails of Niels Kantor, an art dealer and collector, who two years ago had...

If you asked a hundred urban twenty-somethings to describe themselves, a fair number would define themselves as artists of one sort or another. “I’m a painter,” a few would tell you.  “I’m an actor,” others would say. Jazz saxophonist, dancer, standup comedian – the...

All of us know someone with a seemingly effortless sense of style. It’s usually a woman, someone to whom you could give a man’s old tuxedo jacket, a peasant blouse, a tartan skirt, and combat boots and say, “Make an outfit out of this.” She would roll up the jacket’s...

In 1981, in an act of faith that today makes me shudder at its innocence, my wife and I moved with our baby to New York from Chicago. The passage of time has mercifully dulled the troubles of those first days – moving into half the space we’d had in Chicago for twice...

One of the joys and nuisances of having been trained as an art historian is that you constantly see life imitating art. I was attending the opening of The Armory Show two weeks when I was struck by the sight of a young woman tending bar. “Excuse me, but would you let...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . . ~Robert Frost Last summer I visited the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. It’s a terrific little museum and well worth taking time to visit when you’re in the Boston area. The...

I am ordinarily the soul of benevolence and good will toward all humanity, but there are occasional dark days, often caused by the failure of some museum curator to return my calls, when my spirit turns peevish and I entertain myself by playing a game of my own...

I was once visiting a collector’s home, admiring his works of art.  The paintings were first-rate and had one thing in common: they were all nudes.  Even the paintings which would properly be classed as landscapes had nude ladies populating them. I asked him what the...