Now available in paperback for the first time, this study of the modern London art market establishes the central importance of London for the development of the modern retail market in fine art. Leading experts track the emergence and development of the structures and practices that have come to characterize the commercial art system, including the commercial art gallery, the professional dealer, the exhibition cycle and its accompanying rhetoric of press coverage and publicity, and an international network for the circulation of goods.

This new commercial system involved a massive transformation of the experience of viewing art; of the relationships between artists, dealers, collectors, art objects and audiences; and of the very criteria of aesthetic value itself. Its history is thus a vital part of the history of modern art, and this anthology will be of interest to art historians as well as scholars of Victorian Studies, Museum Studies, and Social History.

About the Author
Pamela Fletcher is Associate Professor of Art History at Bowdoin College. Anne Helmreich is Senior Program Officer at the Getty Foundation

Reviews

Andrew Stephenson contributes a gem of an essay, discussing the impact of social changes in the interwar period, the move of the prosperous middle classes into flats rather than houses, the rising demands of the newly independent single woman, and the way in which the art trade reacted to these demands."

"This is an important book, distinguished both by its detailed scholarship and by the breadth of its contextual understanding."

"Fletcher and Helmreich have opened many doors here, and one may hope that the art trade will join the currently favourite subject of Empire as a theme for fruitful academic research."

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Book Information
ISBN 9780719084614
Author Pamela Fletcher
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Manchester University Press
Publisher Manchester University Press
Weight(grams) 513g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 19mm