About this item
In this highly engaging and empowering book, Michael Findlay, an internationally respected art dealer, urges museum goers to unplug from the audio tour, ignore those information labels, and really see art with all of their senses. When it comes to viewing art, living in the information age is not necessarily a benefit. So argues Michael Findlay in this book that encourages a new way of looking at art. Much of this thinking involves stripping away what we have been taught and instead trusting our own instincts, opinions, and reactions. Including reproductions of works by Mark Rothko, Paul Klee, Joan Mir, Jacob Lawrence, and other modern and contemporary masters, this book takes readers on a journey through modern art. Chapters such as "What Is a Work of Art" "Can We Look and See at the Same Time" and "Real Connoisseurs Are Not Snobs," not only give readers the confidence to form their own opinions, but also encourages them to make connections that spark curiosity, intellect, and imagination.
About the Author
Michael Findlay is a Director of Acquavella Galleries, which specializes in Impressionist and Modern European works of art and post-war American painting and sculpture. The gallery shows the work of leading post-war artists including Lucian Freud and James Rosenquist, and represents Wayne Thiebaud and Miquel Barceló. Acquavella presents major loan exhibitions of works from museums and private collections such as "Picasso's Marie-Thérèse"(2008) , "Portrait of a Collection: Robert and Ethel Scull" (2010) , "Georges Braque - Pioneer of Modernism" (2011) "Jean Dubuffet: Anticultural Positions" in 2016 and Miró | Calder "Constellations" in 2017.
Born in Scotland in 1945 Mr. Findlay directed one of the first galleries in SoHo, New York City, in the 1960's and ran his own gallery there 1969-1977. He was the first dealer in the United states to show the work of Joseph Beuys, Sean Scully and other European artists and gave American artists such as John Baldessari, Hannah Wilke, Stephen Mueller and Billy Sullivan their first solo exhibitions as well as representing veteran Abstract Expressionist Ray Parker.
From 1964 until 1984 Mr. Findlay bought and sold Impressionist and Twentieth century works of art on behalf of American and European private collectors and secured early portrait commissions of Dennis Hopper and others for Andy Warhol.
In 1984 he joined Christie's auction house and was head of the Impressionist and Modern paintings department until 1992 when he became International Director of Fine Arts and a member of Christie's Board of Directors. He supervised the sale of many important collections: Mr. and Mrs Paul Mellon, Hal B. Wallis, Victor and Sally Ganz as well as the sale of "Dr. Gachet" by Vincent van Gogh in 1990. Findlay opened Christie's office in Shanghai in 1994 with an exhibition of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary masterpieces and in 1995 was part of a small team assisting the creation of a Western art program at the Shanghai Museum. He retired from Christie's in 2000.
Since 2001 Mr. Findlay has served on the Art Advisory Panel for the Internal Revenue Service of the Treasury Department of the U.S. Government. He is on the Advisory Council of the Appraisers Association of America and on the Board of the Art Dealers Association of America Foundation, the British Schools & Universities Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He serves on the Academic Advisory Board of Christie's Education.
In 2011 Findlay was keynote speaker at the international seminar in Spain on authentication sponsored by the Salvador Dalí Foundation. He has lectured at museums and universities including Seattle Art Museum, The Menil Collection, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Bridgestone Museum, Tokyo, New York University, Washington & Lee University, Gakushuin University, Tokyo) and Peking Un
