A terrific little book on a fascinating figure

Originally published as a series of essays in The New Yorker in 1951, Duveen, by S. N. Behrman is a terrific little book. The fascinating and often controversial Joseph Duveen (1869-1939) remains one of the art world's most important figures. Along with its wit and eminent readability however, Behrman's work on him is distinguished in that it's as much a portrait of the beginnings of the United States' most distinguished art collections and museums (the Frick, the Morgan, the National Gallery of Art), as it is about the singular dealer who made them all happen. Last reprinted in 2003, copies of the book abound and are well worth picking up.

Airplane reading: "The Modigliani Scandal"

On the plane to San Francisco for New Year's, I finished reading Ken Follett's 1976 art caper, The Modigliani Scandal. Art quests, art forgery, sex and drugs, blue-chip gallerists, this book has it all. It's pretty fun and totally silly if also definitely the early work of a now more accomplished writer. But as Follett himself says in the intro to the 1985 edition of the book I was reading:

"The critics praised [the book] as sprightly, ebullient, light, bright, cheery, light (again), and fizzy. I was disappointed that they had not noted my serious intentions. Now I no longer look on the book as a failure. It is fizzy, and none the worse for that."