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Duveen: A Life in Art
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 709.2
EAN: 9780226744155
ISBN: 0226744159
Label: University Of Chicago Press
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 540
Publication Date: November 01, 2005
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Studio: University Of Chicago Press
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Editorial Review:
Anyone who has admired Gainsborough's Blue Boy of the Huntington Collection in California, or Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owes much of his or her pleasure to art dealer Joseph Duveen (1869–1939). Regarded as the most influential—or, in some circles, notorious—dealer of the twentieth century, Duveen established himself selling the European masterpieces of Titian, Botticelli, Giotto, and Vermeer to newly and lavishly wealthy American businessmen—J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Mellon, to name just a few. It is no exaggeration to say that Duveen was the driving force behind every important private art collection in the United States. The first major biography of Duveen in more than fifty years and the first to make use of his enormous archive—only recently opened to the public—Meryle Secrest's Duveen traces the rapid ascent of the tirelessly enterprising dealer, from his humble beginnings running his father's business to knighthood and eventually apeerage. The eldest of eight sons of Jewish-Dutch immigrants, Duveen inherited an uncanny ability to spot a hidden treasure from his father, proprietor of a prosperous antiques business. After his father's death, Duveen moved the company into the riskier but lucrative market of paintings and quickly became one of the world's leading art dealers. The key to Duveen's success was his simple observation that while Europe had the art, America had the money; Duveen made his fortune by buying art from declining European aristocrats and selling them to the "squillionaires" in the United States. "By far the best account of Joseph Duveen's life in a biography that is rich in detail, scrupulously researched, and sympathetically written. [Secrest's] inquiries into early-twentieth-century collecting whet our appetite for a more general history of the art market in the first half of the twentieth century."—John Brewer, New York Review of Books
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A fascinating character
This is the story of Joseph Duveen, the man responsible for building the most famous private collections (later museums) in the U.S. As a dealer, he was the first to fully understand that art travels where money lives, which is to say from Europe to America.
There are many lively anecdotes recalling his relationship with Morgan, Mellon, Altman, Widener and, most of all, the diabolical Berenson (thanks to new material that has surfaced recently, the confidential contract between the expert ... Read More
Rating:  - although somehow difficult to follow, very interesting book
For someone interested in art, and more particulary in paintings, this is a very interesting book. Perhaps too many dates, too many names all mixed up in the course of some 40 or 50 years. However, i think it is the best the author could have done. Full of anecdotes, reading this book is also a very entertaining way of learning about the world of art dealers, auction firms and the greatest collectors of all time.
Very recommendable
Rating:  - A Great Effort Sadly Lacking
I held great hopes for this book--Duveen has long been of interest to me because of the pivotal role he played in the creation of some of the greatest art collections in this country. However, Secrest in her drive to capture the "essence" of the man has so mangled the story of his life and career that reading her work is more chore than delight. To say the book is disorganized is to deal in serious understatement. But worse than that are the inaccuracies, especially when she writes about Duveen's ... Read More
Rating:  - Europe had the Art, America had the Money
The sub-title of this book, 'A Life in Art' is absolutely true, but almost misleading. Quite a number of books with something like that in their name deal with the life of an artist. This one, instead, deals with the life of Joseph Duveen, art dealer.
Joseph Duveen lived at a time when the established order was changing. He made an early observation that while Europe had the art, America had the money. As head of Duveen Brothers (London, Paris, New York) he set up an organization finding ... Read More
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