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The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby's-Christie's Auction House Scandal |
Author: Christopher Mason
Published: 2005-05-03 |
List price: $15.00
Our price: $7.80
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As of: November 20th, 2008 05:12:42 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Informative.
This was a close look at corporate London/New York greed within my world of antiques dealing, and it was nice to see comeupance for some amorality, but I'm not sure how much anybody or anything has really changed in the auction world. The stakes are just too high, so probably now the crooks are just more careful.
 "greed is good, greed works"
The Art of the Steal is a morality play but the morals we must draw from it differ somewhat from those proclaimed in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. (The book should have been dedicated "to those who got away with it".) True some of the sinners discover that the wages of sin are destruction (incomes, careers, reputation and in one instance, liberty). However, there are also less morally satisfying `morals' to be drawn. Chief of these is: if you must sin make sure you get it all down on paper and then squirrel the evidence away so that later you can get away with your sins by acts of cowardice, betrayal, and the skilfully orchestrated whistle blowing known as `turning state's evidence'. Do all that and you may evade the penitentiary and even hang on to millions in severance pay, stock options and mansions. Also exposed is the ludicrous capriciousness of the American criminal justice system where so much legal action is dominated by the desire of lawyers to add to their reputations - and their incomes. Certainly the connection between the courts and morality - or indeed justice - seems coincidental. Here we find the very marginally guilty going to prison, the very guilty walking away, and the outrageously, indeed confessedly, guilty slapped firmly on the wrist. Finally, this book delivers one clear lesson to all future corporate sinners. If everybody keeps his big mouth shut everybody will get away with everything, no matter how dire the suspicions of the Justice Department. Am I serious? Alas, I am.
Christopher Mason's enthralling book concerns the great Sotheby's and Christie's scandal, which rocked the art collecting world and `high society' across continents during 2000. The blurb states that chief executive officers Christopher Davidge (Christie's) and Dede Brooks (Sotheby's) conspired to "cheat their clients out of millions of dollars". In fact the issue is more that they colluded to deny their clients costly incentives to become their clients. The often comic sometimes revolting thread running through this affair is that terminal greed was to be found everywhere - except, ironically, among the dedicated, devoted, grotesquely underpaid employees of the auction houses. The executives were greedy for power and the privileges of great wealth. The dealers, collectors and sellers were greedy for the last dollar from their Cezannes and Van Goghs (neither artist made a brass farthing from painting) for, as the Duchess of Windsor remarked, "You can never be too rich." Another irony: although colluding with Christie's in defiance of the anti-trust laws put the chairman of Sotheby's, Alfred Taubman, one of the richest men in America, in jail for a year, and put his really guilty executive officer, Mrs Dede Brooks, under house arrest for six months and stripped her of her wealth, it was the decades long intense competition between Christies and Sotheby's which had brought this situation about. Their competing for clients and the grotesque incentives they offered were bankrupting them. Finally the hounds of the Justice Department came baying at the door and after them the lawyers, like genial sharks, charging more an hour than a Sotheby's fine art expert could hope to earn in a week. By that time Davidge had unearthed his long cached evidence and cut a deal with the Justice Department which was so good for Christies as well as himself that the new management, trying to come to grips with the destruction he had brought upon them, had to swallow their bile and pay him millions in severance pay. Christies lost millions in lawsuits from hungry clients but escaped criminal prosecution - most unjustly.
What makes this book so good is the author's expertise. He moves in the circles whose lifestyle he mercilessly lays bare. He does not lambast the rich with inflammatory invective. He is more deadly than that. He gets them to spill the beans about themselves, a `child among them taking notes' - and faith, he prints it! The opulence and tasteless extravagance are so gross, the self-absorption of so many are so blatant, that Mason needs no rhetoric. Remember Gordon Gecko? "Greed is good, greed works!" Right on Gordon - but keep an eye on the Anti-Trust Laws!
For Gossip-hounds Only
Written like a particularly juicy and in-depth Vanity Fair tell-all, Christopher Mason's book, The Art of the Steal details the Christie's / Sotheby's price-fixing scandal that roiled the art world several years ago. Through meticulous research and countless interviews Mason brings to life for the average reading-joe the main players purported to be involved in the crime--Dede Brooks and Alfred Taubman of Sotheby's, and Christopher Davidge and Anthony Tennant of Christie's.
Mason is clearly comfortable inhabiting the social circles he seeks to chronicle and the evidence lies in the sheer number of candid interviews he managed to conduct in preparation for writing the book. The story unfolds largely through anecdote (often times to scathing and hilarious effect), and the method mainly succeeds here. The first half of the book sails along at a breathless pace as Mason recounts the arrangement and execution of illegal collusion by the two auction houses. Brooks and Davidge-the then-CEOs of Sotheby's and Christie's, respectively--are portrayed as power-hungry aristocratic wannabes with no concept of the ramifications their unlawful meetings could produce. God-on-high Tennant (Christie's then-chairman) is credited with masterminding the scheme, while Alfred Taubman (Sotheby's then-chairman) is portrayed as the hapless scapegoat who took the hardest fall.
Unfortunately, the amusement of reading bon mot upon bon mot eventually wears off and the later chapters become bogged down with gossipy or repetitive stories that often do nothing to further the narrative. Where the author's sympathies lie also becomes quite plain in the book's final third. Mason has clearly not taken a strictly journalistic approach to his writing and this shortcoming ultimately weakens the facts so painstakingly narrated in the book's first half.
Nonetheless, The Art of the Steal succeeds in much the same way a good soap opera does. Most of the characters depicted between its pages have more money than some of the planet's smaller nations, and everyone knows it's a guilty pleasure to witness the spectacular fall of the uber-rich. The Art of the Steal ultimately proves itself to be a must-read for both watchdogs of the glitterati and those addicted to society columns.
Copyright 2004
 Greed!
Vivid description of the eternal battle between old and new (money) and the rise and fall of some of the upstarts. A good example of what will happen if first generation money is allowed to take over a respectable business and to defile it with their greed and love of display. After all: it takes three generations to become a gentleman...
Special attention for the comments of Lord and Lady Hindlip.
High society shows its greed in Mason's book
A great description of New York high life amidst one of the biggest money scandals of recent memory. Mason keeps the pace fast and sizzling. Lots of colorful details of the characters of high society and the art world make this a fast paced read. He even kees the business and legal side of the story scintilating. It kept me up late into the nights. A must read!
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