{"product_id":"rogues-and-scholars-boom-and-bust-in-the-london-art-market-1945-2000","title":"Rogues and Scholars: Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945–2000","description":"\u003cp\u003eA Times Best Art Book of the Year, 2024\u003cbr\u003e''A riot of a book'' – Country Life''s Books of the Year, 2024\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe modern art market was born on a single night. On 15 October 1958 Sotheby’s of Bond Street staged an ‘event sale’ of Impressionist paintings from the collection of an American banker, Erwin Goldschmidt: three Manets, two Cézannes, one Van Gogh and a Renoir. Movie stars and other celebrities attended in black tie and saw the seven lots go for £781,000 – at the time the highest price for a single art sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOvernight, London became the world centre of the art market and Sotheby’s an international auction house. The event signalled a shift in power from dealers to auctioneers and pointed the way for Impressionist paintings to dominate the market for the next forty years. In this climate Sotheby’s and Christie’s became a great business duopoly – as aggressive, dominant and competitive in the field of art sales as Pepsi and Coca-Cola were in soft drinks. The resulting expansion of the market was accompanied by rocketing prices, colourful scandals and legal dramas. Over the decades, London transformed itself from a place of old master sales to a revitalised centre of contemporary art, a process crowned by the opening of Tate Modern in 2000.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJames Stourton tells the story of the London art market from the immediate postwar period to the turn of the millennium in engaging and fast-paced style, populating his richly entertaining narrative with a glorious rogues’ gallery of clever amateurs, eccentric scholars, brilliant emigrés, cockney traders and grandees with a flair for the deal.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PRHD Penguin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48388130898143,"sku":"9781804541982","price":28.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0685\/2185\/3151\/files\/9781804541982.jpg?v=1769198732","url":"https:\/\/lamplightbooks.co.nz\/products\/rogues-and-scholars-boom-and-bust-in-the-london-art-market-1945-2000","provider":"Lamplight Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}