Filling in the Gaps of his Collection? A Re-asssessment of Sir William Burrell's Late Collecting Practice, 1955-1957

Resource type
Book chapter
Creator (person)
MacDonald, Isobel
Date published
2025
Abstract
This book considers how art market stakeholders, including art dealers, collectors and agents, have shaped museum collections and affected exhibition practices since the mid-nineteenth century. Based on new archival research and data analysis, it explores the role of dealers not only in selling directly to museums, but in influencing museum collecting priorities, as well as potential donors. It also examines the important but hitherto overlooked contribution of the female curator-agent. The book is divided into three sections, which address the relationship between art dealers and museums, women as art agents and influencers, and the strategies of entrepreneurial collectors. Featuring contributions from a wide range of international specialists in the market for decorative arts and antiquities, as well as European modernism, The Art Market and the Museum explores the origins and development of the modern Western art market and the global art networks that operated not only in Paris, London and New York, but in cities such as Glasgow, Vienna, Melbourne and Kansas City. It is perfect reading for scholars and researchers on the history of the art market, museum studies and art history more broadly. This chapter offers a re-assessment of Sir William Burrell's late collecting practice from 1944-1957.
Book title
The Art Market and the Museum: Institutional Collecting, Display and Patronage since the Mid-Nineteenth Century
Editor
Fowle, Frances
Cleary, MaryKate
Publisher
Bloomsbury
Place of publication
London
Official URL
Keywords