Page History

Daniel Chazen

It's amazing how changes in society can affect the way art is marketed.  White and White's analysis of the institutional changes in the French art market from an Academy System to a system based on dealer and critic is very interesting in that, in hindsight, the change seems to have been inevitable because society is more powerful than a single institution, even a prestigious one like the Academy was in France.

On the one hand, it would have appeared that the Academy's power in influencing and essentially controlling art based on a painting's academic qualities would last forever.  But on the other, as early as the eighteenth century, attendance at art exhibitions already included many common people, such as "footmen and servants" (White, 79).  By the nineteenth century, social mobility increased to the point where people of lower economic backgrounds became interested in "serious art" (White, 78).  Yet, the Academy was not sensitive to the social and economic realities that required a "larger market for paintings" and the building up of an artist (White, 94).  So the art exhibitions needed to promote the artwork to new markets – promotion that became based on the dealers and critics who used to be subsidiaries of the Academy system.

The change from an academic system to a dealer-critic system, in my opinion, was not only inevitable, but also made sense and was crucial for everyone involved, especially aspiring artists.  In order to engage in promotion to a growing market, the dealers and critics had to "look at artists more than individual paintings" (White, 98).  The dealers wanted to make money from the growing market and the critics wanted to advance their reputation.  The academic focus of a painting gave way to the needs of a much broader market and less known artists, which meant more people and more money and necessarily involved a dealer-critic system.   I think Fletcher and Helmrich describe it best when they write "the rise of the dealer-critic system was the product of human action and interaction" (Fletcher & Helmreich 343).

One very interesting example of the dealer-critic system is with dealer David Croal Thomson and critic Harry Quilter in late 18^th century London.  Thomson used connections between the press and the market to promote the artists he represented, while Quilter was against that.  As a dealer, Thomson saw the press as a means of marketing the goods from France for which he had access.  However, Quilter, the critic, saw the increasing partisan criticism and the connections between the press and the market as a threat.   The art market relies on cooperation between different, yet closely related, agents to be successful.  That is why I find it very telling about the large overlap between the role of dealer and critic that Thomson was able to occupy both positions simultaneously, particularly given that each role is important to one other.  While a market based on a dealer-critic system requires both a critic and a dealer, they do seem to work hand in hand, and it is possible for one person to take on both roles.  However, if the same person is acting as a dealer and a critic for the same artist or piece of artwork, it seems that the integrity of each role would be severely compromised. 

But the question then is for the lesser-known artist who has not yet received any critical acclaim - can or should the artist's dealer also act as his or her critic?  

What do you think?