Review: Rogues’ Gallery: The Rise (and Occasional Fall) of Art Dealers, the Hidden Players in the History of Art

Rogues’ Gallery: The Rise (and Occasional Fall) of Art Dealers, the Hidden Players in the History of Art by Philip Hook
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received this ARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Philip Hook has written a book that could easily be used in university-level Art History classes and probably should be. Rogues' Gallery highlights the vital importance, and occasional really dirty dealing, of art dealers ranging from the Renaissance to Contemporary era of European and American art. Without dealers, artists would often have been unable to sell their works and one need only look at the number of known artists who died in abject poverty to see that even a dealer selling at exorbitant markup was still putting money in an artist's hands that otherwise mightn't have gotten there.

Hook details the lives and business strategies of dealers such as the legendary Durand-Ruel, whose promotion of the successful Barbizon School painters and the edgy Impressionists drove the success of these painters, in spite of heavy criticism of the latter in the more formal Paris Salon of the 1860's. By keeping the work of the great Impressionists on display to the more open-minded British and American art buying public in London and New York, he allowed painters now lauded, like Monet, Renoir and Manet, to survive and later thrive. Likewise, the role of Kahnweiler in promoting Cubism and artists like Picasso and Braque cannot be overstated. Featuring dealers as diverse as the "thrillingly dishonest" Duveen and "gallerist" Castelli, Hook gives us an insiders perspective on making and selling art. For anyone well-versed in Art History, The Rogues' Gallery (still not sure I agree with that title in full) presents a fascinating look at a side of the art world that is little seen. Add to this the fascinating role of famous collector/dealers such as the rather scandalous Peggy Guggenheim, and all in all you have quite the appealing read if you're a lover of Western art.

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