446. An Object of Beauty

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Steve Martin

Genre:   Fiction, Art

304 pages, published November 23, 2010

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Lacey Yeager is an attractive, ambitious young woman who comes to New York to make her way in the art world during its heyday from the late 1990s through today.  Starting out at Sotheby’s, she climbs the social and career ladders with ease, finally opening her own gallery.

Quotes 

“When someone less capable is ahead of me, I am not pleased. It makes me insane.”

 

“Lacey was just as happy alone as with company. When she was alone, she was potential; with others she was realized. Alone, she was self-contained, her tightly spinning magnetic energy oscillating around her. When in company, she had invisible tethers to anyone in the room: as they moved away, she pulled them in.”

 

“I have found that– just as in real life–imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience.”

 

“You want to know how I think art should be taught to children? Take them to a museum and say, ‘This is art, and you can’t do it.”

 

“…when the person beside you is making you alert and keen and the idea of being with anyone else is not imaginable…”

 

“she is nearing forty and not so easily forgiven as when her skin bloomed like roses.”

 

“She started converting objects of beauty into objects of value.”

 

“An artist who painted a face was now ‘playing with the idea of portraiture,’ or ‘exploring push-pull aesthetics,’ or toying with contradictions like ‘menacing-slash-playful,’ but he or she was never, ever, just painting a face.”

 

My Take

Written by iconic comedian Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty is a compelling character study of an ambitious young woman who also loves art.  I found it fascinating and learned a lot about the inner workings of New York art scene and how the market for art operates.