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Breakfast at Sotheby's

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Hook's view of the art world is that of the professional auctioneer. In an A-Z format, it is an entire art education contained in under 350 pages. Wry, dry and completely beguiling

An auctioneer's alphabet of quirky reflections and off-beat lists such as 'middle-brow artists' and 'fictional artists': an ideal volume for the art-lover's bedside

How to nail the mad, bad, crazy contemporary art world in print? Sotheby's senior director Hook draws on 35 years' experience in this informal memoir. He unravels, with humour, piquancy and erudition, what drives the economics of taste

It's very hard to write an amusing book about art that has some serious things to say. But Philip Hook has done it. It's more a kind of Lonely Planet guide, written from the perspective of an auctioneer. In places it's a hoot, but it's also very wise here and there, and refreshingly irreverent. Sir William Russell Flint, for example, "painted like Augustus John commissioned by Playboy magazine"

Reading it is like participating in a hugely enjoyable personal tutorial given by a cultured, witty, clear-eyed, world teacher with a fully functioning sense of humour. A real delight

An A-Z of the Art World

Fascinating and highly subjective, built on Philip Hook's thirty-five years' experience of the art market, Breakfast at Sotheby's explores the artist and his hinterland (including -isms, middle-brow artists, Gericault and suicides), subject and style (from abstract art and banality through surrealism and war), 'wall-power', provenance and market weather. Comic, revealing, piquant, splendid and absurd, Breakfast at Sotheby's is a book of pleasure and intelligent observation.

Breakfast at Sotheby's is a wry, intimate, truly revealing exploration of how art acquires its financial value, from Philip Hook, a senior director at Sotheby's 
 
'Reading it is like participating in a hugely enjoyable personal tutorial given by a cultured, witty, clear-eyed, world teacher with a fully functioning sense of humour. A real delight' - Spectator 
 
'Hook's view of the art world is that of the professional auctioneer. In an A-Z format, it is an entire art education contained in under 350 pages. Wry, dry and completely beguiling' - William Boyd, Guardian, Books of the Year 
 
'How to nail the mad, bad, crazy contemporary art world in print? Sotheby's senior director Hook draws on 35 years' experience in this informal memoir. He unravels, with humour, piquancy and erudition, what drives the economics of taste' - Financial Times, Books of the Year 
 
'It's very hard to write an amusing book about art that has some serious things to say. But Philip Hook has done it' - Sunday Times, Books of the Year 
 
'An auctioneer's alphabet of quirky reflections and off-beat lists such as 'middle-brow artists' and 'fictional artists': an ideal volume for the art-lover's bedside' - Martin Gayford, Spectator, Books of the Year 
 
'His delightful Breakfast at Sotheby's is a house sale of a book, a chance for him to clear out 35 years of memories as an art dealer and auctioneer, first at Christie's and then Sotheby's, a rival auction house' - Economist 
 
Philip Hook is a director and senior paintings specialist at Sotheby's. He has worked in the art world for thirty-five years during which time he has also been a director of Christie's and an international art dealer. He is the author of five novels and two works of art history, including The Ultimate Trophy, a history of the Impressionist Painting. Hook has appeared regularly on television, from 1978-2003 on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow.

Philip Hook is a director and senior paintings specialist at Sotheby's. He has worked in the art world for thirty-five years, during which time he has also been a director of Christie's and an international art dealer. He is the author of five novels and two works of art history, including The Ultimate Trophy, a history of the Impressionist Painting. Hook has appeared regularly on television, from 1978-2003 on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow.

Breakfast at Sotheby's

An A-Z of the Art World

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