Extraordinary Art Dealers: Stories of Obsession, Innovation and Creativity

Depending on your levels of interest in, and knowledge about, the fine arts, you may or may not have spent any time thinking or learning about the figure of the art dealer: that person or group of people who serve as liaisons in the sometimes-uncomfortable relationship between artists and the commercial marketplace. Whether you’re an art historian or someone with a more casual interest in painting, sculpture or photography, just about anyone who cares at all about fine arts will learn something interesting about the world of art dealers in this new book being released by Heni Publishing, Extraordinary Art Dealers: Stories of Obsession, Innovation and Creativity by Catherine Ingram. 

The roughly 250-page publication is divided into six chapters, in each of which author and historian Ingram presents a type of art dealer, as she sees them. Each segment contains a handful of mini biographies of individual dealers, providing an overview of their life stories, their connections to the art world, and their experiences with and approaches to working to connect artists to people who might purchase their work. The crux of the text covers the time period of 1870-1960, but eras before and after that span also come under consideration. The dealers that come under study have worked around various parts of the globe.

The narrative that emerges across the read is that art dealers, despite often flying under the radar and outside the general public’s awareness, have frequently been nearly as intriguing in character and accomplished in their endeavors as the artists whose creations they’ve sought to market. Whichever of Ingram’s categories of dealers she feels they belong to—be they brands in their own right, controversy initiators, idealists, larger than life personalities, etc.—some of these agents have not just facilitated the showing and sales of art works but have been tastemakers who have been influential in aiding new creative styles and movements in fine art to break through. They’ve impacted how much of an audience an artist reaches with their work and have even affected how critics and theorists view and discuss creative output.

Ingram’s written insights make clear that there is not just one way for an art dealer to operate. Are they speculators with a purely commercial mindset, seeing new artworks as commodities that might grow in monetary value over time, like they’re stocks being traded on the market? Or are they purists who really only wish to bring the most worthwhile fine art into the hands of the most appreciative customers, whatever commission they make in the process? Is it better to represent just one particular artist exclusively (some of the artists have demanded that from their agents) or to cast a wide umbrella and work with many? Once having secured their role as agent marketing the work, is it better to showcase the pieces in their own homes, in galleries, or some other way? Should one be a cultural elitist who only makes the works available to those they believe exist in the rarefied air of the intellectual upper crust, or take a more egalitarian approach and seek to reach audiences of everyday working people with the creations? Ingram expertly illustrates how various dealers over the decades have come at their endeavors via all of the above methods.

In investigating the different dealers highlighted in the book (many of whom are named creative figures outside of their dealing endeavors), Ingram studies their relationships with the artists whose work they have represented in the market. Oftentimes the bonds between artist and agent are especially close, prompting some of the painters to gift their dealers with striking portraits of them. The relationships can also be fraught, though, and the author helps us to see how that can happen.

In sum, Extraordinary Art Dealers is an informative study of an often-overlooked aspect of the art world. Ingram’s word-for-word writing is welcoming and approachable, and her knowledge of the subject matter is vast. The read being broken up into thirty short segments makes it easily digestible. Some of the dealer biographies are more interesting than others, but with each of them being under ten pages, the lesser fascinating ones don’t put a time or attention span burden on the reader, and the more engaging segments are compelling snapshots comfortably taken in. Also, while the author never gets off the immediate topic long enough to go on tangents, in discussing the dealers and their activities she also provides the reader with some knowledge about art history in general.