3 research outputs found
The market for modern art in New York in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties: a structural and historical survey
The nineteen forties and nineteen fifties, acknowledged as the
decades in which New York first emerged as a locus for modern art
production of international stature (particularly the so-called
'New York School '), also witnessed its development into a market
for modern art, both European and American, and it is upon this that
this study focuses.
A modern art market is a 'support-system' which consists of
not only the producer-artists and consumer-collectors but also of a
number of 'intermediaries'. This complex, in addition to the actual
purchase of art works, serves, for instance: to disseminate a
knowledge about modern art in general; to select particular artists
and promote their work in the public eye; to support contemporary
artists financially; and to enhance the sphere of collecting
activity. The groups or institutions involved in these
functions vary according to historical circumstances, and the first
part of this study identifies the key constituents of the 'support-system'
in the New York art market in this period as: New York
museums concerned with modern and contemporary art, both foreign and
native, private dealer-galleries, and collectors; and examines what
parts each played in the structure of the art market as a whole,
paying particular attention to the influence of wider socio-economic
factors upon this.
This 'support-system' structure discussed in the first part
may be considered as synchronic. The second part of this study,
however, concentrates upon an examination of changing trends in
prices and in collectors' preferences for different artistic
expressions (particularly the relative status of American as
against European modern art). Emphasis is placed in this upon
demonstrating where possible how such developments were related to
the functioning of the support system as discussed; and to
situating the behaviour of the New York art market of the period
into a wider national socio-economic context