Breakfast at Sotheby's: An A-Z of the Art Word

An entirely new way to look at art: a wry, intimate—and wholly alphabetical!—exploration of how art acquires its financial value

Two questions are key to experiencing a work of art in a museum or exhibition: 1.) Do I like it? 2.) Who's it by? You need quite a few more questions if you're in an auction room or dealer's gallery, however. You'll find yourself asking, How much is it worth? How much will it be worth in five or ten years? And finally, what will people think of me if they see it hanging on my wall? Breakfast at Sotheby's is not only a guide to finding the answers to such questions, but also a glimpse into the rarely discussed financial side of the art world. Based on author Philip Hook's thirty-five years of experience in the art market, the book explores various shades of artist (including -isms, Gericault, and suicides), subject and style (from abstract art and banality through surrealism and war), "wall-power," provenance, and market weather Comic, revealing, piquant, splendid, and occasionally absurd, Breakfast at Sotheby's is a book of pleasure and intelligent observation, as engaged with art as it is with the world that surrounds it..