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The Portrait of Dr. Gachet: Story Van Gogh's Last Portrait Modernism Money
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The Portrait of Dr. Gachet: Story Van Gogh's Last Portrait Modernism Money Polits Collectors Dealers Taste G Paperback - 1999

by Cynthia Saltzman

Remarkable and riveting, this fascinating and scholarly "biography" of a van Gogh masterpiece illuminates the dynamics of the art market and of culture in our time. 8-page photo insert.


Summary

At a star-studded auction in 1990, a painting was sold for the record-breaking price of $82.5 million. That painting, Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, has seemed to countless admirers to portray our times as "something bright in spite of its inevitable griefs."

This fascinating book reconstructs the painting's journey and becomes a rich story of modernist art and the forces behind the art market. Masterfully evoked are the lives of the thirteen extraordinary people who owned the painting and shaped its history: avant-garde European collectors, pioneering dealers in Paris and Berlin, a brilliant medievalist who acquired it for one of Germany's great museums, and a member of the Nazi elite who sold it after it had been confiscated as a work of "degenerate art." Remarkable and riveting, The Portrait of Dr. Gachet illuminates, in dramatic detail, the dynamics of the art market and of culture in our time.

From the publisher

At a star-studded auction in 1990, a painting was sold for the record-breaking price of $82.5 million. That painting, Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, has seemed to countless admirers to portray our times as "something bright in spite of its inevitable griefs."

This fascinating book reconstructs the painting's journey and becomes a rich story of modernist art and the forces behind the art market. Masterfully evoked are the lives of the thirteen extraordinary people who owned the painting and shaped its history: avant-garde European collectors, pioneering dealers in Paris and Berlin, a brilliant medievalist who acquired it for one of Germany's great museums, and a member of the Nazi elite who sold it after it had been confiscated as a work of "degenerate art." Remarkable and riveting, The Portrait of Dr. Gachet illuminates, in dramatic detail, the dynamics of the art market and of culture in our time.

First line

VINCENT VAN GOGH arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise on May 20, 1890, hoping to find subjects for his pictures and a resolution to the physical and psychological problems that plagued him.

Details

  • Title The Portrait of Dr. Gachet: Story Van Gogh's Last Portrait Modernism Money Polits Collectors Dealers Taste G
  • Author Cynthia Saltzman
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Second Printing
  • Pages 448
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books, New York
  • Date April 1, 1999
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
  • ISBN 9780140254877 / 0140254870
  • Weight 0.7 lbs (0.32 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.74 x 5.05 x 0.85 in (19.66 x 12.83 x 2.16 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Dewey Decimal Code 759.949

About the author

A former reporter for Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, Cynthia Saltzman earned degrees in art history at Harvard and Berkeley. She currently resides with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
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