Program Overview

Course overview

Discover the role of collectors, dealers, and exhibitions in the formation of modern European art in Paris, Vienna, London, Moscow, and Munich.

Art is the new religion for 21-century society, and buying art is like religious belief: it involves faith. Collectors buy art from the art dealers whose role is to persuade people to buy things they want but don’t need. In the mid-19th century, the art dealers, collectors, and exhibition curators became tastemakers and often influenced the course of art history more than the artists themselves.

On this course, we will discuss Daniel Kahnweiler, one of the main Picasso dealers, who assigned the titles to Picasso and Braque's paintings, as well as Paul Durand-Ruel, a major promoter of Impressionist art who sent Monet’s Haystacks to the 1896 Impressionists exhibition in Moscow – the painting then influenced Wassily Kandinsky's decision to become an artist and pursue abstract art. Had the German artists of Die Brücke not had the access to van Gogh’s work exhibited by art dealer Paul Cassirer at the start of the 20th century, Expressionism might never have been developed. And without the Russian collector Sergei Shchukin, Matisse would not have painted his most iconic work, Dance and Music.

In these lectures, we will discuss the following questions: