Foreign Currency Volatility and the Market for French Modernist Art

Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-46824-5
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 12, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 771 g

Reihe: Studies in the History of Collecting & Art Markets

Foreign Currency Volatility and the Market for French Modernist Art examines how the collapse of the French franc in the decades following the First World War activated powerful ‘push’ and ‘pull’ economic forces that compelled French art collectors to monetise their collections while simultaneously elevating the purchasing power of international art collectors. These factors are shown to have played a significant, and previously under-recognised role, in the large-scale translocation of French modernist art that radically accelerated its commercial and critical reception across the globe and positioned it at the apex of the newly established hierarchy of modern art.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Challis, David

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: 20./21. Jahrhundert
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Kunstförderung, Mäzenatentum, Auktionen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

List of Graphs

List of Tables

Introduction

1 Conceptualising the International Art Market

2 The ‘Booming Export Market’ for French Modernist Art

3 Causes of Translocation

4 Foreign Currency Volatility and Translocation

5 The Macroeconomic Perspective

6 Collector Case Studies

1 Economic Disruption and the Monetisation of French Collections

1 French Collecting of French Modernist Art

2 Capital Flight from France

3 Asset Liquidation in Practice

4 Private Wealth Destruction in France

5 The Popular Front and a Return to Capital Flight

6 The Broader European Experience

7 The Importance of Supply-Side Factors

2 Samuel Courtauld as Private Collector and Public Donor

1 Courtauld as Industrialist and Art Collector

2 Economics and the Courtauld Collection

3 Courtauld and the Purchasing Power of the Pound

4 Seurat at the Tate Gallery

5 A Comprehensive Collection of Degas

6 Sunflowers at the ‘Famous Gallery’

7 Securing Modern Masterpieces

8 The Courtauld Institute

9 Courtauld’s Private Collection on Loan

10 Samuel Courtauld as Private Collector and Public Donor

3 Albert Barnes as Currency Opportunist and ‘Visionary Art Educator’

1 Introduction

2 From Pharmaceuticals to the Barnes Foundation

3 Collecting French Modernist Art

4 US Dollar Purchasing Power and Cézanne at the Barnes Foundation

5 Barnes as Currency Opportunist

6 Price Inflation and Currency Devaluation

7 Barnes as ‘Visionary Art Educator’

8 Picasso, African Masks and Object-Based Learning

9 Barnes as Author and the Making of Chaim Soutine

10 Cézanne and Consumer Transfer at the Barnes Foundation

11 Private Collectors and French Modernist Art in America

12 The Barnes Legacy

4 Kojiro Matsukata and the Economics of Rodin in Japan

1 Shipbuilding and Art Collecting

2 Japanese Collectors and the Purchasing Power of the Yen

3 Rodin’s Reception in Japan

4 Eve at the Tokyo National Museum

5 Balzac at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts

6 The Economics of Rodin in Japan

5 Institutional Inertia and the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia

1 The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)

2 The ‘Nucleus’ Strategy at the NGV

3 The NGV’s Turn toward Modern Art

4 An Institutional ‘Tipping Point’ for French Modernist Art?

5 The Tate Gallery and Post-Impressionist Art

6 FBC Purchasing Power in the Interwar Period

7 ‘Modern Art’ Strategy Trumped by the ‘Nucleus’ Strategy

8 Ideological Opposition to the ‘Horrors of Paris’

9 £2,000 for Cézanne’s ‘Best’ Work?

10 Structural Resistances and Degas at the NGV

11 Degenerates, Perverts and a Cheap van Gogh

12 Institutional Inertia at the NGV

6 Assis Chateaubriand at the Museu de São Paulo and the Turn Toward Brazilian Modernism

1 Industrialisation in Argentina and Brazil

2 Purchasing Power in Argentina and Brazil

3 The Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) Appears ‘Almost Overnight’

4 World Tour of ‘Masterpieces’ From the MASP

5 Ballerinas and Racehorses in São Paulo

6 Pietro Bardi as Museum Director and Tastemaker

7 Denial of ‘Ultra-Moderns’ and ‘Local Prophets’

8 The Turn Toward Brazilian Modernism

9 The São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM-SP)

10 Tarsila Amaral and Cultural Cannibalism in Brazil

11 The First São Paulo International Biennial

12 From Vanguard to Rear-Guard in Thirty Years

Conclusion

1 Private Collectors and Translocation

2 Taste Formation and Economics

3 Consequences of Translocation

4 The Fall of the Franc as a Factor Influencing Translocation

Appendix A: The International Gold Standard

Appendix B: Archival Currency Data Calculations

Appendix C: Interwar Translocation of Paul Cézanne’s Paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire

Appendix D: Modern Art as Part of the Broader Art Market

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

David M. Challis, Ph.D. (2019), The University of Melbourne, is a postdoctoral researcher and sessional teacher in the Art History program at that university. His research distinctions include the 2020 Paul Mellon Centre Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Paul Mellon Centre for studies in British Art.