VANITY FAIR: THE RICH AND ...
Vanity Fair: The Rich and the Price of Art
Godfrey Barker
Simplified Chinese rights: Shanghai Sanhui Culture and Press Ltd
Japanese rights: The English Agency Japan
All other rights available
The story of the art market is, by its nature, inextricably linked with the the story of taste, fashion, wealth and self-aggrandisement. It is a direct reflection of the aspirations of the time, whether this be the 18th Century aristocracy revering the concept of Ideal Beauty, Victorian Industrialists extolling their worldy achievements or a manifestation of the American Dream in the 20th Century. It has been tied up with celebrity, scandal, war and plunder throughout the last 250 years and will continue to be so for years to come.
Amazingly, there has been no book to date which examines the art market from this absolutely fundamental social perspective. The only authoritative work published on the subject in the last 50 years is Gerard Reitlinger's multiple volume The Economics of Taste (1958-1970) which, although authoritative and comprehensive, does little to relate art prices to the governing factors behind them. Godfrey Barker is absolutely the person to rectify this – there is no-one else in the field who comes close in terms of unsurpassed authority mixed with a gift for storytelling, a journalistic nose and an acute sense of social awareness.
Greed, Vanity & Folly takes us on an entertaining and often controversial tour of the principal dramas of the international art market, 1850-2009.Beginning with the rise of the industrial patrons over aristocratic taste in the 19th Centry,we witness the crisis of the country house, the arrival of the Americans on the art market; Stalin and the art sale of the century, Hitler’s art war and the eclipse of old masters and the triumph of modern art.
We follow the 20th century’s biggest art boom of 1987-90 and explore the reasons for its causes and collapse.Finally, we witness the boom in contemporary art from Andy Warhol to Damian Hirst and examine the conversion of high-priced art into a worldwide financial instrument and we look at the likely effects of the credit crunch on the art market.
As well as being a highly readable tale of fashion, taste and celebrity, Greed, Vanity & Folly will be rich in fresh research and will not hold back on opinion.
Godfrey Barker is the most experienced specialist writing and broadcasting on the art market in the world. He has published over 750,000 words on the subject and has written regular columns for The Daily Telegraph, The Evening Standard, The Times and Die Welt.He broadcasts on on BBC TV and on BBC Radio 4 as well as delivering the Sotheby's lecture series on the Art Market and guest lecturing internationally.
