A book by Richard Feigen, a famous American collector and art dealer.

The “Memoirs of an Art Dealer” is a book about artists, art auctions, collectors, their ups and downs.

Moscow, 2004
328 p.

Richard Feigen is not a stranger in the art market: he knows many artists and collectors personally, as well as the circumstances in which a particular person became famous or a collector went bankrupt. Of course, the book is full of stories from private life, and views through the keyhole, but its value is not limited by that. Feigen not only tells jokes about celebrities, but also makes a detailed analysis of the American art market since 1940s, when it was just emerging, and till 1980s, when the contemporary art market was experiencing the greatest crisis throughout the world. In Russia today, there is practically no such central concept for the world market as "art dealer". Partially these functions were assumed by galleries, but it is obviously not enough. There aren't any special schools or training courses. That's why this book seems even more important containing the personal experience of a person who, at some point in his life, set himself the goal of becoming an art dealer and successfully achieved it. In his book, he writes about such things as the "eye of an art dealer", that sixth sense that allows a person to distinguish a good painting from a bad one by almost elusive signs.