VIPS in the Art World

Gertrude Stein introduced the Cone sisters and Picasso to Matisse. They all mutually benefitted each other. Peggy Guggenheim lent Jackson Pollock the down payment on his Long Island house where he discovered drip painting. On August 21, 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by employee Vincenzo Peruggia, who was caught after two years. Currently some of New York’s top art dealers are under investigation by federal authorities for allegedly selling dozens of forged works by Modernist masters like Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock. Who are the people in the art world who are not artists but who effect the business of art? Who has been influential as a buyer, a patron, a gallery owner? Which works have been forged or stolen? In this course we will examine several famous art patrons and art thefts. We’ll take a closer look at the "movers and shakers" who effect what sells and doesn't sell in the artmarket.