Summary of Sarah Thornton's Seven Days in the Art World

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 A Christie’s auctioneer, Christopher Burge, is doing a sound check. He lists prices into the void, and then hits everyone but the highest bidder with a stick. His book is a secret script for the sale, with 64 pages for each lot of art.

#2 Christie’s and Sotheby’s, two of the biggest auction houses, hold their major sales of contemporary art twice a year in New York and three times a year in London.

#3 The pressure of the public eye is new for those in the contemporary art world. Artists were not sold publicly with any fanfare until the late 1950s. Collector demand for new, fresh, young art is at an all-time high.

#4 The art market is driven by auctions, which are the main way that art is sold. Primary dealers, who represent artists, have tended to view the auctions as amoral and almost evil. Secondary-market dealers, by contrast, have little to do with artists and work closely with the auction houses.

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Release date

Ebook: 10 June 2022