Art Dealer Quotes

Art dealing is when you're doing it as a business.

And several galleries - two had asked me and I said no, because I didn't want to leave things on consignment.

Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.

It's a great advantage to be able to play people off against each other, isn't it? You go to Christie's and get a quote on something. And then you go to Phillips' and you tell them what Christie's has given you. I like auctions for artists.

In the art world, Monet means money.

My grandfather, who was always keen to promote living artists, staged an unprecedented exhibition of Peploe's works at Kirkcaldy in 1928.

No one was more surprised than me when my paintings started selling, except maybe my dealer.

The last time money left the art world, intrepid types maxed out their credit cards and opened galleries, and a few of them have become the best in the world.

When you're buying paintings, it feels grown up.

I don't see myself as a great discoverer of artists, like Charles Saatchi.

For me, the gallery legitimates the art production and helps build collections. I don't think an artist should do everything by himself forever. I did it for years and then slowly built my circle of trust.

Nobody really needs a painting. It's something you kind of create value for in a way that you don't with a company. It's an act of collective faith what an object is worth. Maintaining that value system is part of what a dealer does, not just making a transaction but making sure that important art feels important.

I don't pay attention to auction prices. Nothing interests me less. One of the benefits of not being an artist is I don't have to navigate the social hierarchies of the art world as a person of desire. I don't need anything. I live in a different way.

A work is not art until enough noise has been made about it and someone rich comes along and buys it.

I've never been what they call a 'pure gallerist.' I find that somewhat pretentious, honestly - I'm an art dealer. I like to show great artists of our time, but I also like dealing. And I think they reinforce each other.

I have a lot of art in the house, but it's mine, friends'. Not necessarily - like, I didn't spend thousands of dollars to attain it. It's authentic, at least.

Artists need a lot of collectors, all kinds of collectors, buying their art.

People don't buy and sell art based on the personality of the artist. Or there wouldn't be much art bought and sold.

My mum is a big collector of art.

The Pop art I wound up doing came to me purely from 'Mad' comics. I loved the idea of doing fun stuff. I met an art dealer who wanted to show the work - that was in January 1962 - and that was the beginning for me.

I collect a lot of art.

Years later, I figured out why he (Ivan Karp) was such a successful art dealer-this may sound strange, but I believe it was because art was his second love. He seemed to love literature more, and he put the serious side of his nature into that...Some people are even better at their second love than their first, maybe because when they care too much, it freezes them, but knowing there's something they'd rather be doing gives them a certain freedom.

A hundred million dollars in the art world is a substantial amount of cash to do anything.

Through my friend Tony Shafrazi, who's an art dealer and an artist himself - he helped to show Basquiat and Keith Haring, and has worked with the Francis Bacon estate - it was really through my friendship with Tony that I developed even more of an interest in art.

Many say an art dealer running a museum is a 'conflict of interest.' But maybe the art world has lived an artificial or unintentional lie all of these years when it comes to conflicts of interest.