From Publishers Weekly
Veteran art writer Mason does a good job separating the bad guys from the slightly less bad guys in his lively, anecdote-packed saga about how the world's two leading auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, conspired to fix prices on everything from famous paintings to antique furniture. Alfred Taubman, the shopping-mall king who bought Sotheby's in 1983 to keep it from falling into the hands of a couple of carpet salesmen, became the only principal in the case to actually do jail time-apparently due to what some courtroom observers labeled "the worst defense money can buy." It didn't help that Diana "DeDe" Brooks, who started her career as an unpaid intern and whose workaholic habits persuaded Taubman to make her Sotheby's CEO, became one of the government's chief witnesses against Taubman. On the Christie's side, the lineup features a number of snobbish Brits, including Christie's CEO, Christopher Davidge, who seems to have sold everyone else down the river. It would have made for smoother reading if Mason (or his editor) had done some pruning: how many times do we need to be told that Brooks is six feet tall or that Taubman's wife, Judy, is a glamorous former beauty queen? But in the end, it's the story that carries the day-an amazing and depressing chronicle of greed in the name of culture that should (but probably won't) keep art buyers from ever walking into an auction house again. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
The definitive book on the price-fixing scandal that roiled the art world, from the reporter who Dominick Dunne says "knows more about the ins and outs of this story than anyone else" (Vanity Fair).
The Art of the Steal is the explosive inside story-the only book to tell the whole truth and dish the dirt-of one of the most fascinating big-business trials of the new century-the price-fixing scandal that rocked the auction world and put one of the richest men in America behind bars.
Brilliantly written and reported, it tells the story of larger-than-life figures-the billionaire tycoon Alfred Taubman; the most powerful woman in the art world, Diana "DeDe" Brooks; and the wily British executive Christopher Davidge-who quaffed champagne and dined on caviar while conspiring to cheat clients out of millions of dollars. The book also offers an unprecedented look inside this secretive, gold-plated industry, describing just how Sotheby's and Christie's grew from clubby, aristocratic businesses into slick, international corporations and showing how the groundwork for the most recent illegal activities was laid decades before the perpetrators were caught by federal prosecutors.
Christopher Mason is the only reporter who has persuaded all the key figures (and hundreds more) to spill the beans. He has followed the trail of this story wherever it has led-from galleries and boardrooms in London, Paris, and New York to parties in Palm Beach and courtrooms in lower Manhattan.
Evoking the best-known investigative narratives like Barbarians at the Gate and Den of Thieves, the hidden lives of the very rich described in Philistines at the Hedgerow, and the crime-and-high-society reporting of Dominick Dunne, The Art of the Steal is destined to become the hottest-and most entertaining-gossip-starter of the season.
About the Author
Christopher Mason is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and New York magazine, and has been writing for more than a dozen years on the worlds of art, society, fashion, and design.
The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby's-Christie's Auction House Scandal FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Art of the Steal tells the story of several larger-than-life figures - the billionaire tycoon Alfred Taubman; the most powerful woman in the art world, Dede Brooks; and the wily British executive Christopher Davidge - who conspired to cheat their clients out of millions of dollars. It offers an unprecedented look inside this secretive, glamorous, gold-plated industry, describing just how Sotheby's and Christie's grew from clubby, aristocratic businesses into slick international corporations. And it shows how the groundwork for the most recent illegal activities was laid decades before the perpetrators were caught by federal prosecutors.
SYNOPSIS
Mason, a socialite and social commentator, writes about the scandal from the inside to describe how the clubby auction houses grew into slick international corporations that cheated clients out of millions of dollars. The minutely detailed narrative is based on more than 2,000 interviews Mason conducted with some 300 sources as well as on Christie's and Sotheby's annual reports and thousands of pages of transcripts and other documents from the trial of Sotheby's Chairman Alfred Taubman. Mason's tome carries a three-page list of dramatis personae, four appendices charting commission charges for sellers, and a flattering cover blurb from Dominick Dunne, the dean of the chroniclers of high-society's dark side. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Veteran art writer Mason does a good job separating the bad guys from the slightly less bad guys in his lively, anecdote-packed saga about how the world's two leading auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, conspired to fix prices on everything from famous paintings to antique furniture. Alfred Taubman, the shopping-mall king who bought Sotheby's in 1983 to keep it from falling into the hands of a couple of carpet salesmen, became the only principal in the case to actually do jail time apparently due to what some courtroom observers labeled "the worst defense money can buy." It didn't help that Diana "DeDe" Brooks, who started her career as an unpaid intern and whose workaholic habits persuaded Taubman to make her Sotheby's CEO, became one of the government's chief witnesses against Taubman. On the Christie's side, the lineup features a number of snobbish Brits, including Christie's CEO, Christopher Davidge, who seems to have sold everyone else down the river. It would have made for smoother reading if Mason (or his editor) had done some pruning: how many times do we need to be told that Brooks is six feet tall or that Taubman's wife, Judy, is a glamorous former beauty queen? But in the end, it's the story that carries the day an amazing and depressing chronicle of greed in the name of culture that should (but probably won't) keep art buyers from ever walking into an auction house again. Agent, Todd Shuster at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth. (May 11) Forecast: Blurbs from Dominick Dunne and Amanda Foresman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, will help reach those who read Vanity Fair and other upscale magazines. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A damning story of dirty dealing in the art world. In the early 1980s, the auction house Sotheby's was in trouble, with a faltering economy and its chairman's profligacy threatening to bring the venerable institution to its knees. Enter shopping-mall magnate Alfred Taubman, who appreciated the gloss Sotheby's would add to his resume and the swell parties he would be able to attend. It didn't take long for Taubman to realize that business could be conducted more profitably if certain niceties were observed-namely, agreeing with fellow auctioneer Christie's upon buyer's premiums and commission rates "mutually beneficial to both firms." There follows, in Mason's fair reporting, a tale of "divvying up big estates on a one-for-me, one-for-you basis," attempting to ensure that all lots at auction commanded the highest possible price. British law and American law clashed over what exactly constituted collusion, but a Christie's executive squealed, quailing at the prospect of besmirching his name, let alone jail time. The whole rotten edifice crumbled, as Mason intricately details. Suddenly, what was thought to be the ultimate in fair bidding became a joke, revealing "a deceitful, secretive criminal scheme whose object and purpose was illegal profit." (Though fabulously rich clients wanting to "deaccession a few major pieces" may not prompt excessive amounts of reader sympathy.) The defendants didn't even demonstrate a measure of contrition: "Blinded by ambition, you substituted shame for fame," the judge lectured Sotheby's chief Diana Brooks, who in his view traded her title of CEO "to be branded a thief and common criminal." Taubman skipped with minor punishment, and Mason baldly suggests thatconnections served him both on the way up and on the way down. Journalist Mason calls into question exactly what drives the art market at so breathtakingly profitable a pace. Agent: Todd Shuster/Zachary Shuster Harmsworth
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