Synopsis
In 1987, Richard Polsky put aside $100,000 to buy a Warhol painting, a dream that took twelve years to realize. In a book that spans the years from the wild speculation of the late 1980s to the recession of the 1990s, Polsky, himself a private dealer, takes his readers on a funny, fast-paced tour through an industry characterized by humor, hypocrisy, greed, and gossip.
The Washington Post
Polsky's most involving pages briefly recount the ill-fated auctions of May 1990, when the art market was in free-fall and masterpieces regularly failed to meet their reserves. But he only glances off the surfaces of the subjects suggested by his title. If you're looking to understand how Warhol came from the back of the Pop pack to pull the highest price per square inch of any contemporary painter, or if you want to have explained to you the sometimes counterintuitive numbers game on which the art market rests, you've got the wrong book. But if you want to know who chucked the chicken leg that stained the $65,000 Ruscha that wild night at Corcoran's place, Polsky is probably the only guy who'll rat him out. — Glenn Dixon