Artful Dodgers

Who really knows how the Art Market works?

Here, for the first time, art detective, veteran appraiser and international art expert Bernard Ewell opens the door and gives you a tour of the most unregulated market on earth. It is unlike any other and does not even follow the rules of economics. There are actually two art markets with one operating as if it was the other and both depending on The Six Myths That Drive The Art Market. Perception is everything and pervasive secrecy is the unbreakable rule. The players, the con men and the larger than life personalities are better than characters created by novelists. You’ll meet the crooks and their victims and realize that both are our creation. We all participate in the fraud and foolishness that props up a market that buys and sells civilization’s greatest treasures and most horrible junk. Be prepared to put aside everything you think you know and have heard from art dealers and read in the press. The international auction houses, big name galleries, superstar artists, and museums are haunted by fakes and forgeries and collectors usually buy for the wrong reasons. Arrogance or ignorance? It’s both. The art market is where the intent to deceive meets contributory negligence and willful ignorance and most of those who have been defrauded don’t even know it. This book will entertain you as it gives you the tools to more safely buy art.