Abstract
At the end of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century a number of dealers who specialized in promoting the avant-garde wrote life writings: diaries, autobiographies, memoirs. In these texts they described an ecology of art dealing in avant-garde art in this period: economic and social marginalization, struggles, failures, successes, desperate searches for collectors and patrons to support themselves and these artists in hard times. I argue that in their writing these dealers reveal an ecology or even a kind of algorithm of temporal anticipation and prediction and of taste, to justify and explain their support of avant-garde artists, and their economic and social struggles as part of this ecology, perhaps also to encourage later dealers to embrace the avant-garde. Their ecology is their shared plot of social ostracism, economic struggles and eventual wide acceptance of their artists’ combined cultural and economic worth, the two valuations being intertwined. This ecology, like all ecologies, had a fundamental temporality. Life writings often exist between a past they describe and the present of their writings in hope of reviving an interest in themselves and their histories. Art dealers’ temporality also embraces the future; promoting still-unknown artists at great risk, these dealers predicted a successful future believing their artists would eventually become famous, highly marketable and museum-worthy. Durand-Ruel, called the father of Impressionism, created the fame of Impressionism; Vollard promoted Impressionists, Post-Impressionist and Cubists; and Weill supported Cubists, Matisse, Rivera, Modigliani, women artists and many young artists.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2026 Special Focus—Modeling Life Systems: Art, Algorithms, Ecologies
KEYWORDS
Art Dealer, Life Writing, Temporality, Ecology, Avant-garde
