Marketing Modernism in Fin de Siecle Europe

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Le Chemin de Fer (The Railroad)
1872-73 (170 Kb); Oil on canvas, 93 x 114 cm (36 1/2 x 45 in); National Gallery of Art, Washington

DAY 5: Today is Saturday, January 7th,  and we move to nineteenth century Paris and London to examine the decline of the French and British

Academies and the rise of the art dealer. Read an excerpt from Harrison C. White and Cynthia White's Canvases and Careers: Institutional

Change in the French Painting World (University of Chicago Press, 1996) to learn about the crucial role of the art dealer and the art critic in

what they have termed "the dealer-critic system". It is through the dealer-critic system and the storied careers of dealers such as Ernest

Gambart, Joseph Duveen and Durand-Ruel that the art market begins to operate on an international scale between France and England (and

later to the United States). In your response to the reading below, discuss the crucial role of the dealer-critic system using an example of an

artist, a critic, a work of art or a dealer.

Readings

Harrison C. White and Cynthia A. White, Canvases and Careers : Institutional Change in the French Painting World

ARTH 4696 FINLEY A New System Emerges WHITE WHITE.pdf

Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu, "The Lu(c)re of London: French Artists and Art Dealers in the British Capital, 1859-1914", in Monet's London : Artists Reflections on the Thames, 1859-1914 (St. Petersberg and Uitgeverij: Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersberg and Snoeck, 2005), 39-54.

ARTH 4696 FINLEY The Lu(c)re of London.pdf

Recommended:

Pamela M. Fletcher and Anne Helmreich, "The Periodical and the Art Market: Investigating the Dealer-Critic System in Victorian England", Victorian Periodicals Reviews, 41:4, Winter 2008, 323-346.

ARTH 4696 FINLEY Periodical and the Art Market FLETCHER HELMREICH.pdf

 Meryle Secrest, Duveen : A Life in Art (*Note: This is a Cornell Networked resource*)
 
 

Individual Contributions

Consider & comment:
Please use this space to respond to your classmates' work and to engage in lively discussions on the day's topic. Keep your comments concise and conversational by responding to others, rebutting or supporting their ideas. Use the comment box below for these observations.