In recent years it is often the collectors themselves who influence taste, as more and more of them shed anonymity and become involved in micro-managing the art world, building their own eponymous museums, commissioning artists, and even curating exhibitions. “At any given period current taste is determined by the mix of dealers, collectors, critics, and museum curators who constitute the ‘art world.’. With skill, humor, and the benefit of nearly a half century as a dealer and collector, Findlay covers an extraordinary amount of territory: the Three Graces, what’s wrong with museums, the walls of caves in southern France and northern Spain, Aphrodite, the parents of Achilles, unscrupulous authors, the gobbledygook of critics, “eye-swimmingly detailed” condition reports, self-generated buzz, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s best year (1982), art-market analysts (don’t believe everything they tell you), how to have an “aha” moment, and even Peruvian olives and Honda Civics. His new book, The Value of Art, is one of the best ever published on the art world, and covers just about everything you would want to know, including how to buy, sell, look at, and enjoy art. No one knows more about the market in Impressionist, modern, and contemporary art than Findlay. In May 2007, it sold at Christie’s for $4.4 million.įindlay, who later became Christie’s international director of fine arts and since 2000 has been a director of Acquavella Galleries in New York, has sold lots of art for more than modest prices and is one of the world’s most knowledgeable and respected dealers. Collectors were encouraged with modest prices.įour years later, when Findlay was director of a Feigen branch downtown, a John Baldessari painting, Quality Material (1966-68), priced at $1,200, hung behind his desk for six months. When Michael Findlay became an assistant at the Richard Feigen Gallery on New York’s Upper East Side, in 1964, young artists making their debut were offering to sell their works in the range of $500 to $10,000, but there weren’t many buyers.
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