In the course of my day, I often speak with collectors who assembled their collections 30 or 40 years ago and ask them if they might consider selling something. Much of the time, they are still enjoying the lovely things on their walls and have no need to sell....
Two weeks ago, I was looking over the catalogues for the upcoming American auctions. I knew that this blog would be concerned with the auctions’ results, and I had already picked out a title for the post: “One Hopped, The Other Didn’t.” The paintings to be discussed...
Katherine Dreier was frantic. The opening of a one-person exhibition at The Art Center, her exhibition space in New York, had just begun. Attendees included some of the most notable names of the American avant-garde art world in 1926: Alexander Archipenko, James...
Art dealers know that there are three cities you can sell to anyone – New York, Paris, and Venice. London is not as easy as you might think, and if you have a painting of, say, Cincinnati, you can sell it only in Southern Ohio. Someone in Atlanta won’t buy it....
If you asked a dealer in 19th and 20th century art to rate subjects in terms of popularity, he or she would undoubtedly put still life paintings of dead fish or game down at the bottom of the list (along with portraits) and put beach scenes at the top. Beach scenes...
In 1887 two girls were born who would grow up to be remarkable modernist artists. First to arrive, in Santa Rosa, California, was Marguerite Thompson. Two months later, Georgia O’Keeffe first saw the light of day in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Each would make a successful...
