After a lifetime as a middle man for great works of art, Michael Findlay wants us to actually see and appreciate them again—and maybe have a little more fun while doing it. Findlay, of course, is still selling art privately at Acquavella Gallery, a role he’s held for almost a quarter-century, long after most of his contemporaries have retired or passed on. At 79 years old, he can boast of having presided over Christie’s Impressionist and Modern department in New York during the boom of the 1980s—when works by Van Gogh, such as the Portrait of Dr. Gachet, were selling for spectacular prices—as well as surviving the bust of the 1990s.
But Findlay doesn’t want to brag about his art dealing triumphs. Rather, in his new memoir, Portrait of the Art Dealer as a Young Man, he is continuing an unconscious project to invite others to experience the joys and satisfactions of art. A previous book, The Value of Art, remains the single best explanation of how the art market really works, told in plain, unpretentious language. Its spiritual sequel, Seeing Slowly, is more of an admonition that one should take one’s time to experience art without preconceptions or intimidation. “The first two books were written specifically to try to balance and help people,” Findlay told me from his weekend house near Goshen, New York. “In approaching the collecting of art, the appreciation of art and the engagement with art, and trying to take some of the mystery out of it that keeps people out of galleries.”
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