Customer Reviews

Recollections of a Picture Dealer

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As an actual "Master Graphics" art dealer, dealing Picasso, Miro', Chagall etc. I found the book to be a great insight. Managing artist-dealer realtionships is the hardest aspect of being a great dealer, and is what made Vollard so huge!

The previous reader, read this book for the wrong reasons. It's not a handbook, nor intended to be one, on establishing you own business as an artist. You will not find any 'hidden secrets'. If you are an art dealer and want to have an insight as to the mastery of Vollard's ability to manage both the artist and the client, this is your book. If your a 'wannabe' great artist, then this 'capatilistic' point of view will not serve you at all.

Whatever you may think of the writing style and content, this book is historic in its autobiographical account of one of the world's most important art dealers. I found it totally fascinating. It brought one of the foremost art historical times to life for me. Even if you are not much of an art aficionado, how could you not be intrigued by the interaction between these historic figures?

I found this book to be quiet interesting. Ambroise Vollard is an extremely important person in art history, and these are his own personal stories. They're very interesting, but I personally found them kind of hard to read and follow. Vollard by no means was a great writer and seems to be all over the place and either used very poor english or was poorly translated (my guess is the 2nd) If you're looking for some good stories though this is a nice read

This memoir is really a collection of anecdotes, which taken together give a vivid impression of a hardworking networking merchant with very good taste.

His energy and determination would have made him a fearsome competitor in what is always a fiercely competitive business. His taste made him memorable.

Interesting from a historical perspective, but essentially a lightweight book.

This is the greatest art dealer of all time - who reprented Manet, Cezanne, Degas, Renoir, and Gauguin !! But the book, after the first 150 pages, all I can say is big disappointment.
I don't even have the motivation to read on.

The book is full of stuff unrelated to art or artists. All the time the writer talked about uninteresting anectidocts that few would care, such as how he went to a threater and what he did there with a unknown art buyer, etc.

The translation is a disgrace too. Fresh from the 1930s, British English, which makes it truly miserable to read. A great match for the writing style though.

The writer, obviously, knew nothing about how to write an interesting book. It makes me wonder how in the world can such a man become an art dealer for so many greatest artists on earth.

the worest thing: It has nothing about how to become an art dealer and how an art dealer works and what makes them succeed.

As an "up-coming" digital painting artist myself, I strongly recommend readers who are interested in art to read the books by SISTER WENDY and "Art of the 20th Century" by JEAN-LOUIS FERRIER which are great art books.