Procurement analysis, sales planning, customer orientation, brand management—the art market is changing more rapidly than ever before. The price that a work of art commands influences its place in the art-historical canon. Auction houses have become dominant avenues of distribution, as have art fairs, galleries, and art dealers. Even today the ritual dramaturgy of the auction resembles an archaic competition, which can leave participants speechless and captivate bystanders. At the center o...

Now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age, Johannes Vermeer specialised in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life in his home city of Delft. The artist’s reputation fell into obscurity after his death and it was not until the 19th century that his work was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him. Since that time, Vermeer’s reputation has continued to grow, recogni...

Why would a New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does a Jackson Pollock “drip painting” sell for $140 million?In the first book to explore and explain the economics of the modern art world, Don Thompson talks to auction houses, dealers, and collectors to uncover the strategies that power the market to make or break an artist’s reputation and produce such astronomical prices.“If you read no other book about art in yo...

The meteoric rise of the largest unregulated financial market in the world -- for contemporary art -- is driven by a few passionate, guileful, and very hard-nosed dealers. They can make and break careers and fortunes.The contemporary art market is an international juggernaut, throwing off multimillion-dollar deals as wealthy buyers move from fair to fair, auction to auction, party to glittering party. But none of it would happen without the dealers...

Now a major motion picture starring Guy Pearce, The Last Vermeer* is a revelatory biography of the world’s most famous forger—a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush—and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world.It’s a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: A lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering in mockery of the...

In Breaking van Gogh, James Grundvig investigates the history and authenticity of van Gogh’s iconic Wheat Field with Cypresses, currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Relying on a vast array of techniques from the study of the painter’s biography and personal correspondence to the examination of the painting’s style and technical characteristics, Grundvig proves that the most expensive purchase” housed in the Met is a fake.The Whe...

An "excellent" new edition of the definitive biography of the architectural genius, with more than a hundred photos ( Booklist, starred review).Upon publication, this book was praised by the Chicago Tribune and "the most comprehensive book ever written about the master designer and, by any measure, the best," while the Christian Science Monitor noted that "Schulze has both the gift of an architectural historian able to render Mies's build...

The name Chanel brings immediately to mind the signature scent of No. 5 and the understated but sophisticated glamour of a simple black dress and pearls. But to consider Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883–1971) as simply a fashion designer fails to capture her social and cultural significance. As Linda Simon reveals in this biography, Chanel was an iconoclastic entrepreneur who rebelled against and manipulated gender expectations of her time. With her menswear-inspired designs, her loose jersey...

Widely regarded as the leading figure of the German Romantic movement, Caspar David Friedrich produced vast and mysterious landscapes and seascapes that explored the theme of human helplessness against the forces of nature, establishing the idea of the Sublime as a central concern of Romanticism. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents Friedric...

One of the most widely read books on modern design, Nikolaus Pevsner's landmark work today remains as stimulating as it was when first published in 1936. This expanded edition of Pioneers of Modern Design provides Pevsner's original text along with significant new and updated information, enhancing Pevsner's illuminating account of the roots of Modernism. The book now offers many beautiful colour illustrations; updated biographies and bibliographies of all major figures; illustrated short ...

In the first volume of Makers of Modern Architecture (2007), Martin Filler examined the emergence of that revolutionary new form of building and explored its aesthetic, social, and spiritual aspirations through illuminating studies of some of its most important practitioners, from Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright to, in our own time, Renzo Piano and Santiago Calatrava.Now, in Makers of Modern Architecture, Volume II, Filler continues his investigations into t...

In February 2012, in a Munich flat belonging to the elderly recluse, Cornelius Gurlitt, German customs authorities seized an astonishing hoard of more than 1,400 paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. When Hildebrand Gurlitt's trove became public in November 2013, it caused a worldwide media sensation.Catherine Hickley has delved into archives and conducted dozens of interviews to uncover the story behind the headlines. Her book illuminates a dark period of German history, unt...