deeper dives

Sources

Traditional print and digital materials are invaluable to an art education. New books—particularly art books—can be expensive. Likewise, digital subscriptions can be cost prohibitive. linn press advocates the use of free-of-charge public and online libraries. Many museum libraries are open to the public.

There are several sellers of new and used books that we recommend. AbeBooks specializes in offers books, fine art and collectibles. It is excellent for hard-to-find materials, and frequently runs sales. Powell’s City of Books offers new, used, and hard-to-find books with a strong orientation to cultural sectors. Likewise, the Strand Bookstore is a monolithic reseller.

Art topics by category

There are several “how-to collect” and “how-to invest” books that gush with enthusiasm. Invariably they offer the same advice: “buy what you love.” Love can be a fickle thing. Collecting is evolutionary and is not mastered overnight. 

We recommend several books that are engaging and informative. We tailor reading lists to client interests, needs, and time. Some books are armchair reads that are easy to pick up and consume leisurely; others demand focused attention. The readings that we generally recommend survey art since the beginnings of Impressionism in the 1870s to contemporary trends. It is an ever-changing list.

The two books that we most frequently recommend about collector experiences and lessons are nearly 70 and 50 years old respectively. The advice remains sound::

There are also some exceptional online resources for more ambitious study and analysis. For more in-depth research, we recommend using a college, university, or museum library.

The Internet and social media are particularly cluttered with (often hyperbolic) fad and fashion. Invariably we direct our clients to the digital resources of publications, institutions, and galleries. Annual “power lists,” profiles of living collectors, and “top” artist and dealer rarely provide insight.

As for art prices, most databases rely almost exclusively on art auction estimates and results. These are poor indicators of both price and value since they are dissociated from retail prices and the numerous additional costs of buying and owning art, like auction house commissions, dealer discounts, sales taxes, import duties, transportation, storage, insurance, and the sometimes unexpected need for conservation.

Art collecting

  • Baur, John I. H. and Saul Steinberg. ABC for collectors of American contemporary art. New York: Distributed by The American Federation of Arts through Arlyn Press, 1954.

  • BMW Group, Independent Collectors. The seventh BMW Art Guide by Independent Collectors, Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2024. (English, e-book).

  • Farrell, Jennifer, Thomas E. Crow, Agnes Berecz, and Elise K. Kenney. Get There First, Decide Promptly: The Richard Brown Baker Collection of Postwar Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 2011.

  • Ferber, Linda S., and Margaret R. Laster, eds. Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons : Collecting American Art in the Long Nineteenth Century. New York, New York], and University Park, Pennsylvania: The Frick Collection; The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2024.

  • Gere, Charlotte, and Marina Vaizey. Great Women Collectors. New York: Abrams, 1999.

  • Gnyp, Marta. The Shift: Art. And the Rise to Power of Contemporary Collectors. Milan: Skira, 2020 (2nd edition).

  • Hatton, Rita, and John A. Walker. Supercollector : A Critique of Charles Saatchi. London: Ellipsis, 2000.

  • Schwartz, Eugene M. with an afterword by John Beeson, project editor. Confessions of a poor collector: how to build a worthwhile art collection for the least possible money. Munich: Edition Taube, 2016.

Art dealing

  • Cohen-Solal, Annie. Leo and His Circle : The Life of Leo Castelli. 1st American ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf., 2010.

  • Collischan, Judy. Women Shaping Art : Profiles of Power. New York: Praeger, 1984.

  • Farrell, Jennifer, Diana Bush, Serge Guilbaut, Agnes Berecz, Rebecca Schoenthal, Barbara L. Michaels. Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia Board of Visitors, and Neuberger Museum of Art. The History and Legacy of Samuel M. Kootz and the Kootz Gallery. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia : The Rector and Visitors at the University of Virginia, 2017.

  • Gabriel, Mary. Ninth Street Women : Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler : Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art. First Back Bay paperback edition. New York: Back Bay Books, 2018.

  • Lafreniere, Steve, ed. Hello, We Were Talking About Hudson. Chicago, IL: Soberscove Press, 2024.

  • Secrest, Meryle. Duveen : A Life in Art. University of Chicago Press ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

  • Shaykin, Rebecca, Claudia Gould. Jewish Museum (New York, N.Y.), and Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Edith Halpert : The Downtown Gallery and the Rise of American Art. New York, New Haven: Jewish Museum ; Yale University Press, 2019.

Art economics and sociology

  • Bloom, Paul. How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010.

  • Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

  • Graw, Isabelle. High Price: Art Between the Market and Celebrity Culture. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009.

  • Ngai, Sianne. Our Aesthetic Categories : Zany, Cute, Interesting. First Harvard University Press paperback edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012.

  • Ngai, Sianne. Theory of the Gimmick : Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020..

  • Velthuis, Olav, Talking Prices: Symbolic Meanings of Prices On the Market for Contemporary Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Art history

  • FitzGerald, Michael C. Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995.

  • Foster, Hal, Rosalind E. Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, B. H. D. Buchloh, and David Joselit. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2016. (Two volumes.)

  • Hulst, Titia, ed. A History of the Western Art Market : A Sourcebook of Writings on Artists, Dealers, and Markets. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2017.

  • Lunday, Elizabeth. The Modern Art Invasion: Picasso, Duchamp, and the 1913 Armory Show That Scandalized America. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2013.

  • Patry, Sylvie, and Anne Robbins. Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market. London: National Gallery Company, 2015.

Emerging issues

  • Godfrey, Mark, Zoé Whitley, Susan Cahan, David C. Driskell, Edmund B. Gaither, Linda Goode-Bryant, Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell and Samella S. Lewis. Soul of a Nation: Art In the Age of Black Power. New York: D.A.P/Distributed Art Publishers Inc., 2017.

  • Munroe, Alexandra, Philip Tinari, and Hanru Hou. Art and China After 1989: Theater of the World. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2017.

  • Powell, Richard J., Emily Braun, Emilie Boone, James Smalls, Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski, Stephanie Archangel, Christelle Lozère, et al. The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism. Edited by Denise Murrell. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024.

Guilty pleasures

  • Stallabrass, Julian. High Art Lite : The Rise and Fall of Young British Art. Rev. and expanded ed. London: Verso, 2006 (revised.)