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Summary:

"A colorful and fast-moving account of how postwar London became the global center of the art market--a story of Impressionist masterpieces, dodgy dealers, and ground-breaking financial transactions. On October 15, 1958, Sotheby's of Bond Street staged an "event sale" of seven Impressionist paintings belonging to Erwin Goldschmidt: three Manets, two Cézannes, one Van Gogh, and a Renoir. Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, and Somerset Maugham were there as celebrity guests. The seven lots went for £781,000--at the time the highest price for a single sale. The event established London as the world center of the art market and Sotheby's as an international auction house. It began a shift in power from the dealers to the auctioneers and paved the way for Impressionist paintings to dominate the market for the next forty years. Sotheby's had pulled off a massive coup by capturing the Impressionist market from Paris and New York--and now began its inexorable rise, opening offices all over the world. A huge expansion of the market followed, accompanied by rocketing prices, colorful scandals, and legal dramas. London transformed itself from a fusty place of old master painting sales to a revitalized center of contemporary art, crowned by the opening of Tate Modern in 2000. The Tate Modern successfully united new (and mostly foreign) money in London with the art world, offering its patrons a ready-made sophisticated social milieu alongside dealers in contemporary art. In a vibrant and briskly-paced style, James Stourton tells the story of the London art market from the immediate postwar period to the turn of the millennium. While Sotheby's is the lynchpin of this story, Stourton populates his narrative with a glorious rogue's gallery of eccentric scholars, clever amateurs, brilliant emigrés, and stylish grandees with a flair for the deal"-- [Provided by publisher]

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Introduction
• The Goldshmidt sale
• Sotheby's goes for world domination
• The Christie's fightback
• The grandees
• Bond Street and beyond
• Modern art: mostly Cork Street
• Cuckoo in the nest: the Marlborough Gallery
• New directions: the swinging sixties
• Furniture: Bond Street
• Pimlico Road
• Tribal art: from curiosities to masterpieces
• European porcelain
• Sculpture and works of art
• All that glisters: silver
• Art commodified: British Rail Pension Fund
• Disrupters: Geraldine Norman and Tom Keating
• The Chinese market
• Victoriana

• The London scene
• The zenith of Sotheby's and Christie's in London
• The Getty factor: old master drawings
• Antiquities: the gathering storm
• The rise and fall of Robin Symes
• The 'Sevso' saga
• The most improbable deal: 'go see Oliver Hoare'
• Game over Bond Street
• The rise of contemporary art
• Anthony d'Offay
• The YBAs
• Commission fixing at Sotheby's and Christie's
• At the millennium.

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Author/Creator:

Stourton, James

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

Rogues & scholars: a history of the London art world: 1945-2000 [by Stourton, J.]

Subjects:

Sotheby's (Firm) — History — 20th century

Art auctions — England — London — History — 20th century

Art — Collectors and collecting — History — 20th century

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description based on print version record.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Call Numbers:

N8605.G72 S68 2025eb

ISBNs:

9781639368242 (electronic bk.)
1639368248 (electronic bk.)
9781639368235 [Invalid]
163936823X [Invalid]

Other Control Numbers:

EBC31363161 (source: MiAaPQ)
[Unknown Type]: ybp306882091