Output details

Strategies of Display and Modes of Consumption in London art galleries in the Inter-war years

This 8500 word refereed chapter in Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich (eds.), The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London 1850-1939 (2011 pp.98-125) developed out of papers given at three conferences: the ‘A Nation of Shopkeepers’: Innovation and the Art Market in Great Britain’ session convened by Pamela Fletcher at the College Art Association Annual Conference, New York (2007); the ‘Circuits of Exchange and Valuation: the London Art Market as an International Network 1850-1950’ session chaired by Anne Helmreich at the Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, Tate Britain, London (2008), and the ‘Art and Commerce in Great Britain’ conference, Rennes University (2009). See: http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9780719084614

Contributing to the book’s reassessment of the importance of London as a world art centre, the chapter analyses the changing structures of the art market and the impact of gender demographics and social changes in the inter-war decades. Analysing art gallery displays in London, the research demonstrates the ways in which the market responded to the growth of new younger and more fashionable audiences of art consumers, especially newly independent single women. It also shows how the smaller spaces and interior design of modern flats influenced the ways that modern British art was marketed not only by the art trade, but by design studios and department stores in the years around the Depression. It also underscores how modern retailing practices were positively embraced during these years, thereby marking out a shift in attitudes towards commercial consumption by London’s art dealers. The book was reviewed in the Burlington Magazine (January 2013 – see:

http://burlingtonmag.tumblr.com/) and it was repriinted in paperback in February 2013.