Breakfast at Sotheby's

Breakfast at Sotheby's PDF Author: Philip Hook
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468310305
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
“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

Breakfast at Sotheby's

Breakfast at Sotheby's PDF Author: Philip Hook
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468310305
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
“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

Rogues' Gallery

Rogues' Gallery PDF Author: Philip Hook
Publisher: The Experiment
ISBN: 1615194282
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
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).

Primates of Park Avenue

Primates of Park Avenue PDF Author: Wednesday Martin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476762716
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe. After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place. She understood the other mothers' snobbiness at school drop-off when she compared them to olive baboons. Her obsessional quest for a Hermes Birkin handbag made sense when she realized other females wielded them to establish dominance in their troop. And so she analyzed tribal migration patterns; display rituals; physical adornment, mutilation, and mating practices; extra-pair copulation; and more. Her conclusions are smart, thought-provoking, and hilariously unexpected. Every city has its Upper East Side, and in Wednesday's memoir, readers everywhere will recognize the strange cultural codes of powerful social hierarchies and the compelling desire to climb them. They will also see that Upper East Side mothers want the same things for their children that all mothers want--safety, happiness, and success--and not even sky-high penthouses and chauffeured SUVs can protect this ecologically released tribe from the universal experiences of anxiety and loss. When Wednesday's life turns upside down, she learns how deep the bonds of female friendship really are. Intelligent, funny, and heartfelt, Primates of Park Avenue lifts a veil on a secret, elite world within a world--the exotic, fascinating, and strangely familiar culture of privileged Manhattan motherhood"--

The Art of the Steal

The Art of the Steal PDF Author: Christopher Mason
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0425202410
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.

Great Houses of London

Great Houses of London PDF Author: James Stourton
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 0711276285
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
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.

Art of the Extreme 1905-1914

Art of the Extreme 1905-1914 PDF Author: Philip Hook
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782835156
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
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.

Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Silver

Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Silver PDF Author: Charles Truman
Publisher: Antique Collectors Club Limited
ISBN: 9781850297598
Category : Silversmiths
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Written by a team of specialists, this is a chronological exploration of the history of silver, its uses, its means of production, and the names behind the most famous pieces. The book includes an illustrated glossary, a dictionary of silversmiths and information on hallmarks.

An Object of Beauty

An Object of Beauty PDF Author: Steve Martin
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 0446573663
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
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.

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark PDF Author: Don Thompson
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 0230341934
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock's drip painting No. 5, 1948 sell for $140 million? Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored. This book is the first to look at the economics and the marketing strategies that enable the modern art market to generate such astronomical prices. Drawing on interviews with past and present executives of auction houses and art dealerships, artists, and the buyers who move the market, Thompson launches the reader on a journey of discovery through the peculiar world of modern art. Surprising, passionate, gossipy, revelatory, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark reveals a great deal that even experienced auction purchasers do not know.

The Invention of Everything Else

The Invention of Everything Else PDF Author: Samantha Hunt
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 054708577X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Hunt's novel is a wondrous imagining of an unlikely friendship between theeccentric inventor Nikola Tesla and a young chambermaid in the Hotel New Yorker, where Tesla lived out his last days.