Tales from the Art Crypt: The painters, the museums, the curators, the collectors, the auctions, the art

by Richard Feigen

From one of today's most influential art collectors and a lively, revealing, sometimes blasphemous, always knowing look into the world of art.

Richard Feigen's fifty years in the art world have given him a unique perspective on its inhabitants and habits. He writes about the painters he has known and represented (among them James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, Jean Dubuffet, and Joseph Cornell), and about others whose work he has collected. He writes about his galleries in Chicago and New York City, and about his fellow dealers, including Julien Levy and Leo Castelli.

He talks about the "eye" that allows a dealer to recognize a fine painting. He discusses the great art-owning families, art historians, scholars, and conservators. He recounts the story of the debacle at the Barnes Foundation that resulted in the undoing of Albert Barnes's vision for his museum, and reveals the fate of the artworks that belonged to Gertrude Stein. He dissects the art boom of the 1980s and its effects, and takes on the commercialism plaguing American museums blockbuster exhibitions and the replacement of great directors with "professional administrators."

Feigen has given us an intimate, engrossing portrait of the great art game as it has been played in the twentieth century.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 20, 2000

Reviews

[vivivivivivi]

Richard Feigen was a super prolific New York/Chicago art dealer. He dealt with high profile pieces, people and institutions, specialises in Old Master pieces, and was a champion of elitism especially in high art. He was also someone who was snobby, hoity toity, proud, and didn’t really care for anyone else’s opinions, so reading an autobiography of someone like that honestly can be a little off-putting.

That said, the tooting-my-own-horn recounting of these high value deals gave me a very eye-opening insight to a whole new level of art management and acquisition! It was kinda cool feeling like I’m sitting right in the middle of a Sotheby’s / Christie’s auction! I really enjoyed reading about the Neumanns, Julien Levy, and the whole story of the Shahnameh deal. I found the behind-the-scenes dynamics between dealers, collectors, and institutions to be insightful too. I’ll say give this a go if you’re interested in the business of art dealing.

[Brandon]

This was the 4th in a series of books about the 'Art World' I've read. I was rather unimpressed. He has some interesting stories but overall the book feels like it was his one opportunity to talk about all the important people he sold important art to. The one gem was his recollection of what happened with the Barnes Collection. Insider stuff, but too self-important for my taste.

[Spoon Popkin]

I was hoping this book was full in insights as to how the art world works behind the scenes, but it's pretty much Richard Feigen bragging about the great deals he's gotten over the years.

[Marijean Miyar]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but then I have inhabited many of these worlds. As a museum goer from birth, as a graduate student in Art History in New York the the early 70s, and then as part of a museum board where my husband has served for many years, I knew many of the characters he writes about. And many of the issues have resonated with me in the last 50 years. The reviewer who complained about name dropping, this is the story of the book, the people who have transformed earlier cultures and ways of doing things, in the universities, in the museums and in society.

[GK Stritch]

I was impressed with Richard Feigen's straightforward approach as a speaker at a MMA lecture series--that's why I chose to read this book--but found the first 92 pages mostly a disappointment. I didn't become engage until page 93 with the Rose and Morton Neumann story. The book is somewhat poorly organized, at the least, an index would have been helpful.

However, I learned a few things. "The most dependable way to figure out who painted a picture is to have an "eye"--to have taste, that ability to enter an artist's head . . ." (p. 7) and an anecdote about identifying, in this case a Rousseau, (pp. 190-193):

So there was my job: proving it was a Rousseau . . . I showed it to everyone who knew anything about Rousseau, Alfred Barr could not say it was a Rousseau, nor could he say it wasn't. James Johnson Sweeney wasn't sure either. I had X-ray photographs taken in quadrants. They showed no pentimenti and revealed nothing. It was like a paternity test. Nothing indicated it was not a Rousseau, but there seemed to be no way it prove it was. It occurred to me that the only proof would be to find someone still alive who might have seen the painting in the 1906 Salon d'Automne, more than half a century earlier . . . There went my one surviving eyewitness, and any chance I had of proving . . . [the] Rousseau . . . After spending much time and money on it, and still harboring the nagging suspicion that it was indeed a Rousseau, I shipped the painting back to Paris. I have never seen it since, and I have no idea what happened to it . . .

[Aaron Kent]

The best book I have read this year. Feigen's stories offer a wonderfully interesting, candid, sometimes funny and sometimes jaw dropping picture of the 20th century art market. Whether he's stopping by Joseph Cornell's house along the Utopia Parkway, meeting Dubuffet, or sneaking money into France from Switzerland, you find yourself marveling at how crazy the art world is and how varied the cast of characters is that inhabits its stage.

[t-rex]

"Freud said, 'Your grand ideals, your grand theories? Your exquisite taste? Those are your parlor furniture. Come with me...I'm going to take you down to the cellar and show you how the house really works.' Richard Feigen's true-life tales take us on that same fascinating tour through the art world."

-Tom Wolfe, back cover blurb.

[Susan Tan]

Very dry detailed book with no narrative arc. The short stories don't really have a real plot. I do recommend this book. I think the author likes bragging about how much money he's making in high-profile deals with Iran govt.

[Tara]

Richard Feigen is a huge deal in the gallery world. He retired and wrote this book. Its like reading about finance through eyes of Greenspan. He is the last word on the New York Gallery scene.

[Jennifer Stec]

Gives you an inside look at the art world from a famous curators eyes.