Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art
Category: Books,Arts & Photography
Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art Details
From Publishers Weekly Although Pablo Picasso declared in 1918 that dealers were the enemy of artists, this revealing illustrated study documents how Picasso strived to win the support of dealers, critics, collectors and curators who could boost his reputation?and sales. Through his friendships with two impresarios, poet Jean Cocteau and longtime ballet patron Eugenia Errazuriz, Picasso attracted the patronage of aristocratic circles that welcomed his shift from cubism to neoclassical styles. Then, in 1918, he formed an alliance with two prominent dealers in France, Paul Rosenberg and Georges Wildenstein. His intense collaboration with Rosenberg, according to the author, stimulated Picasso's art, exposing him to Post-Impressionists. Drawing on Picasso's correspondence, FitzGerald, associate professor of fine art at Trinity College in Connecticut, carries the story of Picasso's lionization at the 1939-1940 Museum of Modern Art retrospective in Manhattan. He makes a compelling case that entrepreneurship is a defining task of the avant-garde artist. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more From Library Journal The art marketplace has always been the domain of the dealer-private or auction house-and, for good or ill, it has increasingly become the sphere of influence of critics, collectors, and curators. In this engaging, well-written account, the author examines the role of the artist in the confluence of the aesthetic and the commercial during the rise of modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawing upon extensive unpublished correspondence between Picasso and those involved with the marketing of his work, Fitzgerald presents this artist as a model entrepreneur in his collaboration with the major French dealers of his time, Paul Rosenberg and Georges Wildenstein. Fitzgerald's observations and his clearly and intelligently drawn conclusions open new venues for the study of modernism and give us a new and different view of the creators and the purveyors of today's art.Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New YorkCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more See all Editorial Reviews
Reviews
Brilliant and complete study of the start of the art market and of the relationship between Picasso and his dealer, Paul Rosenberg.