An Art Book - Michael Findlay and Véronique Chagnon-Burke

FREE - Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

In this engaging and informative event, author and world-renowned art dealer Michael Findlay speaks about his new book, The Value of Art. He draws on his decades of experience in the art world to provide insight into the history and current state of the art market. He is accompanied by Véronique Chagnon-Burke, current Director of Studies at Christie’s Education, for a discussion and a Q&A session with the audience.

Fig 15, pg. 52, Vincent van Gogh,"Enclosed Field with Young Wheat and Rising Sun, 1889." Credit: The Bridgeman Art Library.What is art worth? How can a work by Pablo Picasso be sold for more than $100,000,000? The Value of Art engagingly explains the art market and art’s value for all of us. In straightforward prose that neither mystifies art nor denies its special allure, prominent art dealer and market expert Michael Findlay offers his personal view on almost half a century in the business of art. He focuses on art’s three kinds of value: commercial; social; and what he calls its essential value—the range of responses to art that we as individuals have, depending on our culture, education, and life experience. Few avid collectors are immune to the thrill of rising market value, but Findlay argues that buying for investment alone is seldom smart. A genuine love of art and the ways it may enrich one’s life also play important roles. Down-to-earth and with a touch of dry wit, he explains exactly how artworks are valued and reveals the workings of the art market. Enhancing his narrative are wise advice, insider anecdotes, and tales of scams, celebrity collectors, and remarkable discoveries. Generously illustrated, this book is a distillation of a lifetime’s experience in the field, making it an indispensable insider’s guide for all who love art.

Copies of the book are available for purchase and signing at the event.

Fig. 30, pg. 105, Kuan Yao Octagonal Bottle. Credit - Photo: Peter Willi/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Michael Findlay, an internationally renowned art dealer, is a Director of Acquavella Galleries in New York, known for major exhibitions of nineteenth and twentieth century masters including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, James Rosenquist, and Lucian Freud. Born in Scotland, Findlay began his career in New York in 1964, where he was a pioneer of SoHo’s legendary gallery scene and presented important solo exhibitions of then-unknown artists such as John Baldessari, Stephen Mueller, Sean Scully, and Hannah Wilke. In 1984 he joined Christie’s as its Head of Impressionist and Modern Paintings and later was named International Director of Fine Arts while serving on the Board of Directors until 2000. At Christie’s, he supervised the sale of many important collections, including the collections of William and Edith Mayer Goetz, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Hal B. Wallis, and Victor and Sally Ganz. He was also responsible for the sale of Portrait of Dr. Gachet, a painting by Vincent van Gogh which sold for $82,500,000. Since 2001 Findlay has served on the Art Advisory Panel for the Internal Revenue Service and in 2009 he was elected Vice President of the Art Dealers Association of America. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Appraisers Association of America and also the Advisory Board for Christie’s Education. His first book, The Value of Art, is published in English and German and as an e-book by Prestel Publishing. Mr. Findlay is married with two children.

Fig. 29, pg. 103; Interior of Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz residence showing works by Pablo Picasso, Édouard Manet, and Alfred Sisley, c. 1955. Unknown photographer.

Véronique Chagnon-Burke is Director of Studies at Christie’s Education New York, where she also teaches a seminar on the History of the Art Market. She graduated from the Ecole du Louvre and the Sorbonne in Paris and earned her Master’s Degree at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. She then received her PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Chagnon-Burke is a specialist in the history of nineteenth-century French landscape painting. Yet her fields of expertise also include the nineteenth-century Parisian art market and women art critics during the July Monarchy. She has taught a wide range of subjects at Queens College, Parsons School of Design and Hunter College. Her museum and research positions have included work at the Museum of Modern Art and the College Art Association. She has also worked at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris. Since 2008, she has been a visiting professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where she teaches graduate classes in the history of the art market.

In its third season the program series An Art Book, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world renowned artists, critics, curators, historians and writers.