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A fascinating character
although somehow difficult to follow, very interesting book
A Great Effort Sadly Lacking
Europe had the Art, America had the Money

Duveen: A Life in Art
Meryle Secrest
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0375410422
Release Date: 2004-09-21

Book Description

Meryle Secrest, biographer of Kenneth Clark (“Riveting . . . enthralling” –Wall Street Journal) and Bernard Berenson (“A remarkable tour de force”–Sir Harold Acton), brings all her exceptional gifts to the story of Lord Duveen of Millbank. Her book is the first major biography in more than fifty years of the supreme international art dealer of the twentieth century and the first to make use of the enormous Duveen archive that spans a century and has, until recently, been kept under lock and key at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The story begins with Duveen père, a Dutch Jew immigrating to Britain in 1866, establishing a business in London, going from humble beginnings in an antiques shop to a knighthood celebrating him as one of the country’s leading art dealers. Duveen père could discern an Old Master beneath layers of discolored varnish. He perfected the chase, the subterfuges, the strategies, the double dealings. He had an uncanny ability to spot a hidden treasure. It was called “the Duveen eye.” His son, Joseph, grew up with it and learned it all–and more . . .

Secrest tells us how the young Duveen was motivated from the beginning by the thrill of discovery; how he ascended, at twenty-nine, to (de facto) head of the business; how he moved away from the firm’s emphasis on tapestries and Chinese porcelains toward the more speculative, more lucrative, more exciting business of dealing in Old Masters. We see a demand for these paintings growing in America, fueled by the new “squillionaires” just at the moment when British aristocrats with great art collections were losing their fortunes . . . how Duveen’s whole career was based on the simple observation: Europe has the art; America, the money.

Secrest shows how he sold hundreds of masterpieces by Bellini, Botticelli, Giotto, Raphael, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Watteau, Velázquez, Vermeer, and Titian, among others, by convincing such self-made Americans as Morgan, Frick, Huntington, Widener, Bache, Mellon, and Kress that ownership of great art would ennoble them, and while waving such huge sums at the already noble British owners that the art changed hands and all were happy.

We discover Duveen’s connection to Buckingham Palace: how when the Prince of Wales became Edward VII his first act was to call in Duveen Brothers as decorators (something had to be done with the lugubrious Victorian décor and ghastly tartan hangings); how Duveen supplied the tapestries and rugs for the coronation ceremonies in Westminster Abbey; and how, in 1933, he became Lord Duveen of Millbank. We learn about the controversies in which he became embroiled and about his legendary art espionage (a network of hotel employees spied on his clients to discover their tastes).

Duveen was as generous as he was acquisitive, giving away hundreds of thousands of pounds to British institutions (the Tate Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum–including rooms to house the Elgin Marbles), organizing exhibitions for young artists, writing books about British art, and playing a major role in the design of the National Gallery in Washington.

Meryle Secrest’s Duveen fascinates as it contributes to our understanding of art as commerce and our grasp of American and English taste in the grand manner.

As Andrew Mellon once said, paintings never looked as good as they did when Duveen was standing in front of them.

Customer Reviews:

A fascinating character.......2007-04-11

This is the story of Joseph Duveen, the man responsible for building the most famous private collections (later museums) in the U.S. As a dealer, he was the first to fully understand that art travels where money lives, which is to say from Europe to America.
There are many lively anecdotes recalling his relationship with Morgan, Mellon, Altman, Widener and, most of all, the diabolical Berenson (thanks to new material that has surfaced recently, the confidential contract between the expert and the dealer is very well described in the book). It is true that this book is not entirely satisfactory because it is somewhat confuse and too anecdotical, but the main character is so fascinating that it still makes for good reading.

although somehow difficult to follow, very interesting book.......2006-08-09

For someone interested in art, and more particulary in paintings, this is a very interesting book. Perhaps too many dates, too many names all mixed up in the course of some 40 or 50 years. However, i think it is the best the author could have done. Full of anecdotes, reading this book is also a very entertaining way of learning about the world of art dealers, auction firms and the greatest collectors of all time.
Very recommendable

A Great Effort Sadly Lacking.......2005-03-01

I held great hopes for this book--Duveen has long been of interest to me because of the pivotal role he played in the creation of some of the greatest art collections in this country. However, Secrest in her drive to capture the "essence" of the man has so mangled the story of his life and career that reading her work is more chore than delight. To say the book is disorganized is to deal in serious understatement. But worse than that are the inaccuracies, especially when she writes about Duveen's customers. Just for starters, apparently she didn't recognize the need to differentiate between John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his father (or maybe she didn't know there has been more than one JDR!). You won't learn much from this tome that you don't know to begin, and getting through it will be a struggle.

Europe had the Art, America had the Money.......2004-09-30

The sub-title of this book, 'A Life in Art' is absolutely true, but almost misleading. Quite a number of books with something like that in their name deal with the life of an artist. This one, instead, deals with the life of Joseph Duveen, art dealer.

Joseph Duveen lived at a time when the established order was changing. He made an early observation that while Europe had the art, America had the money. As head of Duveen Brothers (London, Paris, New York) he set up an organization finding hundreds of the Old Masters in Europe and selling them to American collecters. The list of his customers reads like a Who's Who of the American rich: Mellon, Frick, J. P. Morgan, Huntington, Kress, Hearst and many, many more.

The book is largely based on the Duveen Archive. Held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the archive was locked away and hidden. Only recently has the archive been transferred to the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities in Los Angeles. There a decision was made to make the archive available on microfilm for study. The archive consists of the documentation that accompanied the business: letters, cables, photo albums, ledgers, sales books, stock books, etc. These kinds of documents are the life blood of a business and in this case enable the author to have unparalleled insight to how the business operated. This is combined with a knac for story telling that makes the dead business documents come alive.

The insider's insider.(Books)(Book Review): An article from: New Criterion

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The insider's insider.(Books)(Book Review): An article from: New Criterion
John Russell
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1932 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The insider's insider.(Books)(Book Review)
Author: John Russell
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 23 Issue: 2 Page: 63(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Duveen a Life in Art
Meryle Secrest
Manufacturer: UNIV OF CHICAGO + PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N776XY

Average customer rating:

Duveen: A Life in Art
Meryle Secrest
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OX9T2S

Average customer rating:

Duveen: a Life in Art
Meryle Secrest
Manufacturer: University of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N75C94

Average customer rating:

Duveen: A Life in Art
Meryle Secrest
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OPHC2U

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