{"product_id":"9781804541982","title":"Rogues and Scholars : Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945–2000 by James Stourton","description":"A Times Best Art Book of the Year, 2024'A riot of a book' – Country Life's Books of the Year, 2024The 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.\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,\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Binding: Paperback,\u003cbr\u003ePagination: 432 pages","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47234100429027,"sku":"9781804541982","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1701\/6275\/files\/9781804541982.jpg?v=1759502517","url":"https:\/\/www.harbourbookshop.co.uk\/products\/9781804541982","provider":"The Harbour Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}