Acrobat Distiller, Job 25 NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES MASTERPIECES AND MARKETS: WHY THE MOST FAMOUS MODERN PAINTINGS ARE NOT BY AMERICAN ARTISTS David W. Galenson Working Paper 8549 http://www.nber.org/papers/w8549 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 October 2001 The views expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research. © 2001 by David W. Galenson. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Masterpieces and Markets: Why the Most Famous Modern Paintings Are Not by American Artists David W. Galenson NBER Working Paper No. 8549 October 2001 ABSTRACT A survey of the illustrations in art history textbooks reveals that the most important modern American painters, including Pollock, Johns, and Warhol, failed to produce individual paintings as famous as the masterpieces of a number of major French artists, such as Picasso, Manet, and Seurat. Analysis of the textbooks reveals that art historians do not consider the American artists to be less important than their French predecessors, or judge the Americans’ innovations to be less important. The absence of American masterpieces instead appears to be a consequence of market conditions, as changes over time in the primary methods of showing and selling fine art reduced the incentive for artists to produce important individual works. David W. Galenson Department of Economics University of Chicago 1126 E. 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 and NBER sogrodow@midway.uchicago.edu 3 Paris and New York It has become a commonplace of art history that "after the Second World War, the art world witnessed the birth and development of an American avant-garde, which in the space of a few years succeeded in shifting the cultural center of the West from Paris to New York."1 The Abstract Expressionists and the painters who followed them in New York dominate histories of modern art in the second half of the twentieth century as decisively as the Impressionists and the painters who followed them in Paris dominate histories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper documents and explores a striking fact about the history of modern art that involves a neglected contrast between these two episodes. Specifically, the great American painters of the modern era failed to produce individual paintings as famous as those produced by a number of the great French painters who preceded them. This is not because the American painters are less important than their predecessors; indeed, the same evidence that establishes that the greatest American masterpieces are less famous than their French counterparts reveals that the American masters themselves are at least as important as several of the French painters who produced the most celebrated individual works. The resolution of the puzzle appears to lie instead in a basic difference in practice between the French and American painters, which was a product of a change over time in the market institutions of modern art. Explaining why modern French painters produced more famous paintings than their American successors highlights a very concrete way in which changes in the methods of showing and selling fine art have changed the way artists work. 4 Famous Paintings The puzzle considered here is posed by a comparison between the results of two earlier studies.2 Both studies counted the illustrations of paintings contained in published surveys of art history in order to identify and rank the painters and paintings considered most important by art historians. The approach is analogous to a citation study, in which the importance of scholars, and of individual publications, is measured by the frequency with which they are cited. Yet using illustrations as the unit of study has an advantage over analyzing written references, because of the greater cost involved. In addition to the greater expense of printing photographs, authors or publishers must bear the cost of obtaining permission to reproduce each painting, and a suitable photograph. The much higher cost in both time and money should tend to make authors more selective in their use of illustrations, thus making illustrations an even more accurate indication than written references of what an author believes to be genuinely important.3 The first of the earlier studies alluded to above identified the most often reproduced paintings done by 35 leading artists born during 1819-1900 who lived and worked in France, while the other did the same for 35 leading artists born during 1900-40 who lived and worked in the United States.4 The results of these studies are shown in Tables 1 and 2, respectively, which list the leading 10 paintings (actually 11, in both cases, because of ties) done by these two groups of artists. Neither table appears surprising in itself. The 15 artists listed, including Picasso, Manet, and Matisse in Table 1, and Pollock, de Kooning, and Johns in Table 2, are obviously among the most influential artists who worked in the relevant times and places. And the 22 paintings are all landmarks of modern art, their images immediately familiar to students of art history. 5 A puzzle appears, however, in a striking contrast in the relative frequency with which the French and American paintings appear in the books surveyed. The Demoiselles d’Avignon appears in 91% of the books considered, a percentage more than 2 ½ times as great as that of any American painting. Six French paintings appear in more than half of the books considered, while no American painting reaches that level. In fact, all 11 French paintings appear in at least 45% of the books, a level greater than any one of the American paintings. To be included in Table 2, an American painting did not have to appear in even a quarter of the books surveyed; only six of the works listed in Table 2 reached that level. This comparison suggests that the most celebrated French modern paintings are considerably more famous than their American counterparts. Yet one other possibility must be considered, for Tables 1 and 2 are not based on identical sets of books. The study of French artists surveyed a total of 33 books, whereas the study of American artists surveyed a larger number of books, totaling 56. Although the two sets of books overlap to some extent, some of the books used in each study could not be used in the other, because of limitations in subject matter by time and place. The difference observed here could consequently be due, at least in part, to differences in the use of illustrations by authors whose books were included in only one of the studies: perhaps books on French modern art systematically include more illustrations than books on American art. To eliminate this possibility, illustrations of the paintings of Tables 1 and 2, and of all the works of the artists who produced them, were searched in a common set of books. The books used were all those that could be found that were published in English, from 1980 on, that provide illustrated treatments of the entire history of modern art. Some of the books analyzed 6 survey all periods of art history, some only the modern period, but the necessary requirement for use of a book was that no artist listed in Table 1 or 2 was excluded by the definition of the book’s designated coverage by time and place. Twenty-nine books were found that satisfied these criteria for selection.5 Table 3 shows the ranking of the 22 paintings from Tables 1 and 2 that results from the survey of the illustrations in these 29 books. The Demoiselles d’Avignon remains in first place, and the 97% of the books in which it appears is again more than 2 ½ times as great as any American painting. Seven of the French paintings appear in more than half of the books surveyed, compared to none of the American works. All but one of the French paintings appear in more books than any of the American paintings; the two highest-ranked American works tie Courbet’s L’Atelier, the lowest- ranked French painting, by appearing in 38% of the books. Six of the eleven American works appear in less than a quarter of the books surveyed. Table 3 therefore shows that the puzzle posed by comparing Tables 1 and 2 is not an artifact of differing practices of the different sets of authors of the books used to produce those earlier rankings. For Table 3 yields the same result: when measurement is restricted to a set of books that survey both the French and American painters, it remains the case that the most famous French modern paintings are simply much more often reproduced than the most famous American modern paintings. And this finding is reinforced by Table 4, which lists all other paintings by the 15 artists whose work appears in Table 3 that appear in at least one quarter of the 29 books surveyed. Table 4 shows that there are 11 other paintings that satisfy this criterion, and that all 11 are by French artists. Considering Tables 3 and 4 together, a total of 8 works by the 15 artists considered in this study appear in at least half of the books examined that survey both 7 French and American modern art, and all of these are by French painters. Furthermore, 27 works by these artists appear in at least one quarter of the books, and 22 of these - 81% - are by French artists. Simple quantitative analysis of evidence produced by art historians thus poses an intriguing puzzle that does not appear to have been studied - or even noticed - by art historians. And the interest of this question may not be solely historical, for ownership of famous individual paintings appears to be a key determinant of the ability of museums to attract visitors.6 From this vantage point, the puzzle raised here would be why some leading nineteenth-century French modern artists were more likely than their American successors to produce superstar paintings.7 The task of this paper is to solve this puzzle. Famous Painters Perhaps modern French painters produced more famous paintings than their American successors simply because they themselves were more important. It would hardly be surprising that the most important works of great artists would be more celebrated than the major works of lesser artists. Yet the evidence of the art history surveys indicates that greater eminence of the artists cannot explain the dominance of French over American paintings seen in Table 3. Based on the same 29 books used in Tables 3 and 4 to rank individual paintings, Table 5 measures the importance of the artists who produced these paintings, by listing the total illustrations of each painter’s work. French artists do dominate the top positions. Remarkably, Picasso has more than twice the illustrations of any other artist, but Matisse, Manet, Duchamp, and Gauguin also have more total illustrations than any American artist. Yet two Americans - Pollock and Johns - rank 8 above Courbet, and Warhol ties Courbet in total illustrations. Furthermore Pollock, Johns, and Warhol all rank above Seurat, who is also tied by Rauschenberg. Table 5 clearly demonstrates that the greater fame of individual French paintings cannot simply be explained as a consequence of the greater importance of French modern artists. The evidence of the texts does show that the ranking of the Demoiselles d’Avignon at the top of Table 3 can be explained by the enormous importance of Picasso, as witnessed by his dominant position in Table 5. Yet Seurat, whose painting of the Grande Jatte ranks second in Table 3, is outranked in this measure of importance by no less than three Americans, and tied by a fourth. Why did Seurat produce a painting that is surpassed in frequency of illustration only by the Demoiselles d’Avignon, while none of the four Americans whose overall achievement was deemed at least as important as his produced a single work that was reproduced even half as often as Seurat’s masterpiece? Similarly, Courbet produced three paintings that are illustrated more often than all but two paintings by all the American artists considered here. Why did Courbet produce more famous individual works than all the Americans combined, even though the overall importance of his work is considered no greater than that of three Americans? Famous Innovations Perhaps French modern painters produced more famous paintings than the Americans because their innovations were more specific and highly concentrated in time. Thus whereas some great artists’ contributions have arrived suddenly, and could consequently be embodied in individual works, the advances of other great artists have been made much more slowly, and have therefore appeared gradually in a larger body of work.8 If the French artists made contributions of the first type, and the Americans made advances of the second type, this could 9 account for the greater emphasis on specific works of the French painters. Yet the evidence of the texts suggests that greater suddenness of innovations cannot account for the greater fame of the French artists’ paintings. Table 6 presents evidence on the total illustrations of the work of each artist in the specific years in which they executed the paintings listed in Table 3. The goal here is to measure the importance of particular innovations rather than of particular works. Although the choice of the period of time is to some extent arbitrary, one year is a sufficiently short period of an artist’s career that it is unlikely to capture more than one discrete contribution. Picasso places first in Table 6 for the works he produced in 1907, the year he initiated the Cubist revolution. Manet stands second for 1863, the year he painted both the Olympia and the Déjeuner sur l’herbe , from which many scholars date the modern era in art. Andy Warhol’s work of 1962, in which he made his seminal contributions to Pop Art, stands third in Table 6, ahead of all the other great French innovations, including Seurat’s contribution of 1886 to Neo- Impressionism and Matisse’s 1906 innovations in Fauvism. Pollock’s work of 1950, in which he reached the peak of his signature drip style, ties Seurat’s work of 1886 for fifth place in Table 6. In all, four of the top nine entries in Table 6 are for American painters. Since the table can be considered to rank the most important temporally concentrated contributions made by the masters of modern art considered by this study, this prominent representation of Americans among its highest entries suggests that the failure of American artists to produce individual paintings as famous as those of the French cannot be attributed to any absence of suddenness in the important innovations of the Americans. 10 From Group Exhibitions to Gallery Shows The greater fame of the major French masterpieces of the modern era thus does not stem simply from the greater fame of their creators, or the greater importance of the innovations they embody. Providing a complete explanation for the absence of American paintings from the highest ranks in Table 3 may lie beyond the scope of this investigation. Yet it is possible to point to one powerful factor that made a direct contribution to the change observed here. Specifically, the lesser importance of individual paintings from the later episode appears to be related to a difference in artists’ practices that stemmed from a differing conception of artistic success in Paris before World War I and New York after World War II. The change in these practices and attitudes between the two episodes may have been in turn a consequence of a major change in market institutions.9 Throughout most of the nineteenth century - certainly until the last quarter of the century - French artists understood that the government’s official Salon was the sole means of having their work “published”- presented to the public in a setting that would assure critics and collectors of its worth.10 Historian Jacques Lethève described the significance of the Salon for French artists: [F]or the nineteenth-century artist in France there was only one place to exhibit, only one place which could set the seal on his success: the Salon... To be accepted for the Salon marked a turning point in an artist’s life. The various prizes and medals awarded by the jury were essential steps in their career for those who wanted to succeed. The contacts made at the Salon with art lovers and potential patrons made sales and commissions much easier to secure, particularly as the general public regarded those excluded from the Salon as bad painters or bad sculptors. Some purchasers would only buy a work of art on condition it was accepted for the Salon.11 Artists who wished to have successful careers consequently devoted considerable attention to the 11 style and subject matter favored by the Salon’s jury. The growing size of the Salon over time also had implications for artists’ behavior, as the competition for attention at the crowded exhibitions grew more intense.12 The growing congestion increased the danger that an artist’s work would be ignored because it was hung in a bad location. Historian George Heard Hamilton observed that “one way for an artist to avoid such a calamity was to paint a picture so large it could not possibly be overlooked. Such huge ‘machines,’ by reason of their size alone, attracted critical and popular attention quite out of proportion to their merit.”13 As an ambitious young artist, Gustave Courbet took for granted that reputations were made at the Salon, and he quickly realized that it was necessary to exhibit large and important individual works there in order to attract notice. When Courbet was 26, one of the five paintings he submitted to the 1845 Salon was accepted. He told his family that “at the Salon it has attracted some potential buyers,” but he explained that this success would not greatly advance his career because the painting was too small: “When you don’t yet have a reputation you cannot sell easily and all those small paintings do not make a reputation. That is why this year I must do a large painting that will definitely show what I am really worth.”14 For many years Courbet made it a practice to produce large paintings that would gain attention at the Salon. All three of Courbet’s works listed in Tables 3 and 4 were prepared for the Salon: both the Stone Breakers and the Funeral at Ornans were exhibited at the Salon of 1851, while L’Atelier was rejected by the 1855 Universal Exhibition. Courbet is of course celebrated for his “challenge [to] the hegemony of official art” in 1855, when the jury’s rejection of L’Atelier and two other paintings prompted him to mount an independent exhibition of his work near the Universal Exhibition.15 Even then, however, Courbet believed that the legitimacy of his enterprise would be established 12 by the jury’s acceptance of the other paintings he had submitted, as when he wrote to tell a patron of his decision to stage a private show he explained that “I am taking advantage of the boost the government has given me by receiving eleven paintings in its exhibition.”16 Edouard Manet was firmly committed to the goal of achieving success at the Salon. Despite numerous snubs of his work by the jury, including the Salon’s famous rejection of the Déjeuner sur l’herbe in 1863, he held steadfastly to the position that “the Salon is the true field of battle - it is there that one must measure oneself.”17 This attitude led him consistently to decline invitations from his younger friends to join them in the renegade Impressionist group exhibitions of the 1870s and early ‘80s. Manet’s three paintings of Table 3 were all submitted to the official jury; the Déjeuner sur l’herbe was exhibited at the Salon des Refusés in 1863, the Olympia at the 1865 Salon, and the Bar at the Folies-Bergère at the Salon of 1882, the year before his death. It is a staple of art history that the influence of the Salon dwindled during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1881 its government sponsorship was ended, and in 1884 it lost its monopoly as Paris’ only large annual group exhibition.18 Yet in historians’ concern for the decline of the official Salon, what has sometimes been overlooked is the continuing importance of group exhibitions in general in allowing artists to create reputations. The Impressionists are often identified as the artists who undermined the Salon system, by selling their work through one-man shows.19 Monet did begin to have successful shows at the galleries of Paul Durand- Ruel and Georges Petit in the late 1880s, and his friends Renoir and Pissarro would do the same in the next decade, but their successes came only after the Impressionists’ reputations had been established in the group exhibitions they had held during 1874-1886.20 Although no one 13 institution would any longer be the exclusive forum in which artists could become recognized, it would still be some time before private galleries could successfully introduce new talents to the public, and during this period group exhibitions would continue to be critical in allowing young artists to publish their work. One consequence of this was that young artists were still conditioned to produce important individual works that could compete successfully for attention in large halls filled with paintings by many other artists: thus “much of the general education and the instruction in Paris ateliers continued, in the mid to late nineteenth century, to inspire the desire to create the great work, the tableau worthy of being hung beside Poussin.”21 Georges Seurat’s career illustrates the continuing desire to produce individual major works for group shows. Seurat first submitted his work to the Salon of 1883, but the jury accepted only one drawing and refused his other entries. His work first gained attention the following year, when his large composition, Une Baignade à Asnières, was rejected by the Salon but was subsequently shown at the exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendents. Seurat first exhibited his monumental Grande Jatte in 1886 at the final Impressionist group exhibition, where the painting quickly became an object of controversy. Throughout his brief career, Seurat followed the practice of producing many preparatory studies for occasional major individual works, which he then presented to the public in group exhibitions.22 Unlike Seurat, Paul Gauguin had no formal training in art, and had consequently not been indoctrinated with the traditional respect for the Salon. Yet the ambitious Gauguin may have learned indirectly the importance of producing major individual works. Although Gauguin exhibited at the five Impressionist group shows held during 1879-86, his paintings attracted little notice from critics or collectors. A biographer has suggested that Gauguin realized at the 1886 14 Impressionist exhibition, where his were among the many works overshadowed by Seurat’s Grand Jatte, that he would have to produce a powerful and bold work to have a comparable impact. His masterpiece of 1888, The Vision After the Sermon, may have been a result of that lesson.23 Henri Matisse routinely exhibited at Paris’ major group exhibitions early in his career - initially at the Salon de la Nationale, then annually at the Salon des Indépendents and the Salon d’Automne. In 1896, after Matisse had studied with Gustave Moreau for five years, the teacher told his pupil that it was time for him to produce a major work to demonstrate his progress. On a canvas larger than any he had used before, Matisse executed The Dinner Table, which he exhibited at the 1897 Salon de la Nationale.24 Matisse would later continue to demonstrate his progress with large works, including Luxe, calme, et volupté, his major Divisionist painting, which he exhibited at the 1905 Salon des Indépendents, and The Joy of Life, his Fauve manifesto, which was shown at the 1906 Indépendents. An outsider who arrived in Paris after completing his formal training in art, Pablo Picasso was the first major modern artist who established himself without participating in large group exhibitions.25 His dominant work of Table 3 may nonetheless have been prompted by the French tradition described here. Early in his Paris career, the ambitious young Picasso recognized Matisse as his rival for the informal leadership of the artistic avant-garde. Picasso particularly envied the attention Matisse gained from showing his Joy of Life at the 1906 Indépendents.26 A friend and biographer of Picasso observed that Matisse’s painting challenged Picasso in part “because of its success within the terms of traditional Salon canvases.”27 Picasso responded methodically, as for months during the winter of 1906-07 he filled one sketchbook after another 15 with preparatory drawings for his own major work. Historian William Rubin estimated that in all Picasso produced between four and five hundred studies for the Demoiselles d’Avignon, “a quantity of preparatory work...without parallel, for a single picture, in the entire history of art.”28 Picasso had deliberately set out to produce a painting that would be recognized as a masterpiece by the artists, critics, and collectors who made up Paris’ advanced art world.29 Remarkably he succeeded, as Table 3 echoes the judgments of many art historians that the Demoiselles is the most celebrated painting of the twentieth century. The latest of the French artists considered by this study, Marcel Duchamp, followed a more conventional path than Picasso in exhibiting his work. Early in his career, Duchamp regularly exhibited his work at group shows, both the Salon des Indépendents and the Salon d’Automne. His Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 was rejected by the Indépendents in 1912, but created a sensation when it was exhibited at the American Armory Show the next year. Duchamp disliked what he considered the commercialization of modern art, and his distrust of dealers led him consistently to avoid having shows of his work at private galleries.30 His overall output, with a limited number of major works that were often preceded by a large number of preparatory studies, reflects his belief that “in the production of any genius, great painter or great artist, there are really only four or five things that really count in his life.”31 Even this brief survey appears sufficient to demonstrate that the traditional importance of group exhibitions in the French nineteenth-century art world influenced many artists’ practices, even after the demise of the official Salon. For much of the nineteenth century success at the Salon was virtually required for commercial success, and even after the demise of the official Salon, for a time success at other large group exhibitions continued to be necessary to establish 16 young artists’ reputations. One consequence of this central role of group exhibitions was to fix in the minds of artists the importance of producing significant individual works - large, important paintings that might stand out among rows of paintings crowded onto the walls of great rooms. Many painters annually devoted disproportionate time and effort to producing these works, as a means of establishing and advancing their reputations. This conception of the importance of the masterpiece persisted even after the conditions that had motivated it had disappeared: so, for example, it appears to have influenced even the young Picasso, who had no interest in exhibiting his work together with that of scores of other artists. The central role of the large group show, and the attendant importance of individual master works, eventually ended. When Barnett Newman was interviewed for a documentary film in 1970, his description of the early opportunities for the Abstract Expressionists to present their work to the New York art world was expressed exclusively in terms of the names of individuals, taking for granted that viewers would understand that the galleries run by these dealers were the only significant exhibition spaces available to the artists: We had no general public. The only thing we did have was the opportunity of seeing each other in shows, so to speak. There were just a few galleries: Peggy Guggenheim up until 1947... and between ‘47 and ‘52, you might say Betty Parsons, Charlie Egan, and to some extent Sam Kootz were the only places where any of us had an opportunity of presenting ourselves, of showing the work.32 Nor would a more prestigious exhibition format have been available had these artists been more successful: of the same period, Robert Motherwell recalled that “in those days it was impossible for an unknown American to show in a first-rate modern gallery, such as Curt Valentin or Pierre Matisse.”33 Thus one-man shows were the primary means of publishing artists’ work, with the 17 prestige of the imprimatur varying among galleries rather than among types of exhibition.34 Instead of Salon acceptances or medals, in New York one-man shows became the units by which artists’ careers were measured, and their progress assessed. So for example, critic Clement Greenberg began his review of a 1945 exhibition by declaring that “Jackson Pollock’s second one-man show at Art of this Century establishes him, in my opinion, as the strongest painter of his generation.”35 Two years later Greenberg again began in similar fashion, writing that “Jackson Pollock’s fourth one-man show in so many years at Art of this Century is his best since his first one and signals what may be a major step in his development.”36 The format of these shows tended to shift the focus of critics from individual paintings to an artist’s recent work more generally, and reviews often discussed an artist’s style or methods without reference to specific paintings. The importance of the one-man show changed the task of the artist. Instead of concentrating on producing a single work that might satisfy the jury and attract public attention at a large group show, the artist had to produce a body of work that would impress critics and collectors. Curator Henry Geldzahler’s comments reflected this change in emphasis when he recalled “in the late 1950s being shocked to hear painters, who believed in the primacy of de Kooning’s position and who admired him, wondering aloud whether next year’s show would repeat his success, whether he could consolidate his lead not by painting a beautiful show but by changing in an unexpected and unpredictable way.”37 Although Geldzahler’s point was to express his dismay at the pressure on an artist repeatedly to innovate, he simply assumed the form the artist’s new work would take, whatever its contribution: the emphasis had thus shifted from producing major paintings to painting important shows. 18 Painters of the New York School typically did not set out to produce individual master works. Willem de Kooning explained that “for many years I was not interested in making a good painting - as one might say, ‘Now this is a really good painting’ or a ‘perfect work.’ I didn’t want to pin it down at all. I was interested in that before, but I found out it was not my nature.”38 The Abstract Expressionists became known not for individual landmark paintings, but for signature images that recurred in large bodies of work. Mark Rothko defended his repeated use of the stacked rectangles that provided the basis for his work for two decades by declaring that “if a thing is worth doing once, it is worth doing over and over again - exploring it, probing it, demanding by this repetition that the public look at it.”39 The artists often stressed the continuity of their work. Thus Clyfford Still declared that “No painting ... is complete of itself. It is a continuation of previous paintings and is renewed in successive ones,” and Barnett Newman observed that “I think a man spends his whole lifetime painting one picture or working on one piece of sculpture.”40 The critic David Sylvester observed that Picasso and Duchamp were the twentieth century’s “most practiced creators of legendary works” of art - a judgment impressively confirmed by Table 3 - then asked: But what of American Abstract Expressionism, a movement steeped in legend? - legendary hopes, legendary deeds, legendary battles, legendary rags to riches, legendary drinking and, alas, legendary deaths. It did not produce many legendary masterpieces, for it flourished at a moment in art history when the masterpiece had given way to the series.41 Historian Anna Chave has pointed out one consequence of this: “The usual procedure has been to write or speak about Rothkos, Pollocks, or Newmans in generic terms ... In the three most widely read books on the New York School, by Dore Ashton, Irving Sandler, and Serge Guilbaut, 19 the authors rarely or never focus on specific works of art.”42 Jackson Pollock’s signature image was a product of the drip style he first used in 1947, and there is a broad critical consensus that his best work consisted of the all-over compositions he produced from then through 1950. No one or two paintings emerged from that period as definitive examples or statements; Pollock’s career is understood as having a plateau rather than a peak. A typical account of this is provided by curator Kirk Varnedoe’s summary essay for the recent Pollock retrospective. Varnedoe begins by declaring the importance of the innovation: “Pollock in 1947 ruptured the existing definitions of how art could be made.” He then observes that no landmark marks the origin: “There is no grand incident to mark this passage - no legendary effort or single ‘breakthrough’ picture.” He asserts the homogeneity of Pollock’s mature work: “When the poured paintings did get underway, the manner arrived full-blown, and then showed no standard, linear development over the next three years.” The absence of a specific masterpiece follows: “One of the smallest and earliest canvases ... is generally consonant with one of the largest and last ... and in between, works of widely varying sizes and formats are remarkably coherent in manner.”43 The books surveyed for this study contain 43 illustrations of Pollock’s paintings from 1947-50; these constitute more than three-fifths of the total illustrations of Pollock’s work, although the four-year period represents less than one-fifth of the 22-year career documented by Varnedoe’s retrospective. Those 43 illustrations could have placed two paintings among the top five entries in Table 3, or three among the top ten, but instead they are divided among 15 different paintings, of which only Autumn Rhythm appears in Table 3, tied for 17th place. The next generation of American artists would go even farther than the Abstract 20 Expressionists in emphasizing bodies of work rather than individual paintings, not only producing paintings that were closely related, but often conceiving and creating groups of individual works that were intended to be seen as a whole.44 Table 6 shows the great importance art historians attach to the paintings Andy Warhol produced during 1962. One of the central influences on his work during that year was the suicide of Marilyn Monroe, which prompted Warhol to begin a series of portraits of the movie star. Yet probably more significant for Warhol’s art was his discovery during the same year of silkscreening. A biographer observed that “Andy quickly realized that this process was tailor-made for his talent,” and he would make silkscreening his primary painting medium for the rest of his career.45 Using the technique in the living room of his apartment, Warhol prepared for his first New York one-man show by painting one hundred pictures in three months.46 Yet Warhol’s repeated use of particular themes had begun even before his adoption of silkscreening. Earlier in 1962 his first one-man show, at Los Angeles’ Ferus Gallery, had consisted of 32 paintings of Campbell’s soup cans. The size of the show was determined by the number of varieties of Campbell’s soup available at the time: as he worked Warhol checked off a list of Campbell’s products to keep track of the flavors he had already painted.47 Warhol’s repetitive use of images naturally gave rise to discussions of groups of paintings. So for example the critic Michael Fried’s review of Warhol’s exhibition at the Stable Gallery in the fall of 1962 referred to the “beautiful, vulgar, heart-breaking icons of Marilyn Monroe ... These, I think, are the most successful pieces in the show.”48 More generally, an art historian has observed that Warhol’s works should be considered in groups: “since Warhol generally conceived and presented new works as ensembles, a single work removed from its original setting operates at a loss.”49 21 Jasper Johns’ first one-man show was held at Leo Castelli’s gallery in 1958. Paintings from that single exhibition appear in a total of 19 of the books surveyed for this study.50 This would be sufficient to put one painting in fourth place in Table 3, but instead the illustrations are divided among eight different works, none of which appears in more than seven books. Only Flag appears in Table 3, and only in a tie for 17th place. It is remarkable that nearly half of all the paintings in an artist’s first exhibition are illustrated in these texts, and also that none emerges as a dominant individual work. Yet these appear to be consequences of Johns’ approach, and of the message of his work. He selected commonplace objects as his motifs, “things the mind already knows.”51 He painted them with detachment: “I decided that looking at a painting should not require a special kind of focus like going to church. A picture ought to be looked at the same way you look at a radiator.”52 And he used each motif repeatedly, as the 1958 show included four paintings of flags, five of numerals, and six of targets. All of these elements contributed to the impact of Johns’ early work. So for example Frank Stella, a young artist who was directly affected by Johns’ first exhibition, later recalled that “the thing that struck me most was the way he stuck to the motif... I began to think a lot about repetition.”53 Yet the repeated and dispassionate use of commonplace motifs also served to deemphasize the individual paintings in Johns’ show. Interestingly, the press release for the exhibition, which summarized its subjects and their treatment, did not refer to any painting by name.54 A number of Robert Rauschenberg’s contributions have explicitly emphasized groups of works rather than individual pieces. A notable early example is the white paintings, a series of seven canvases without images, on which Rauschenberg applied white house paint evenly with a roller. Rauschenberg wanted the paintings to reflect their surroundings: “one could look at them 22 and almost see how many people were in the room by the shadows cast, or what time of day it was.”55 Although the paintings varied in size, each was identically titled “White Painting.”56 In another instance, in 1957 Rauschenberg produced Factum I and Factum II, two paintings with collage elements, done in an Abstract Expressionist style, that appeared identical. The paintings have been interpreted as Rauschenberg’s ironic comment on the belief that the value of a painting lies in its uniqueness. His message may be underscored by the paintings’ titles, for an archaic definition of “factum” is from mathematics: “the product of two or more factors multiplied together.” Rauschenberg’s own words suggest that he does not set out to produce individual works. So for example he told critic Calvin Tomkins that “I just paint in order to learn something new about painting, and everything I learn always resolves itself into two or three pictures.”57 One of the organizers of the recent monumental retrospective exhibition devoted to Rauschenberg observed that he “has always created series, groups, and cycles of work, formally and informally; few works in his oeuvre were conceived as isolated entities.”58 Size Producing a work that would gain attention at a Salon involved more than simply making a large painting. Subject matter, style, originality, and technical virtuosity were all important elements that could contribute to having a painting attract favorable comment.59 Yet although size alone was not sufficient to make a painting successful at a group exhibition, it was often necessary to prevent a work from being overlooked. If the argument of the preceding section is correct, it should therefore be the case that the most famous works of the French painters should be large, and in particular generally larger than those of the Americans. Table 7 shows that this is true. The median size of the French paintings is 4.88 square 23 meters, 65% larger than the median size of 2.95 square meters of the American works. The two largest paintings are French, as are six of the largest nine. Interestingly, when the French works are not large, this can often be traced to particular constraints. The smallest painting in Table 7 is Gauguin’s Vision After the Sermon. Gauguin made the painting while living in Pont-Aven in severely straitened conditions. At the time Emile Bernard reported to Vincent van Gogh that “it grieves him to see how Gauguin is often prevented from doing what he could otherwise for purely material reasons, paints, canvas, etc.”60 In the circumstances Vision After the Sermon was a large work; when Gauguin took it to a neighboring town to offer it as a gift to the chapel, he recruited Bernard and another friend to help him carry it there.61 The next smallest French painting in Table 7, Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère, was constrained in size by the progression of the artist’s terminal illness. Painted at a time when Manet was suffering acutely, the combination of the painting’s size and the complexity of its composition mark it clearly as the most ambitious of Manet’s late works.62 It might be objected that Table 7 does not support the argument offered above, because two of the four largest paintings - Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm and Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis - are by Americans. Yet in contrast to the practice of the French painters, the large size of these two paintings does not appear to signal the intent of the artists to produce individual works of exceptional importance. The Abstract Expressionists’ mature work was characterized by the frequent use of large formats: so for example in 1959, when Alfred Barr asked rhetorically what united the work of the group, his answer began “First, their size... They are often as big as mural paintings.”63 In 1947 Pollock had declared “I believe the easel picture to be a dying form, and the tendency of modern feeling is towards the wall picture or mural,” and in 1950 when an 24 interviewer asked about the size of his canvases, he responded: “They’re an impractical size - 9x18 feet. But I enjoy working big and - whenever I have a chance, I do it whether it’s practical or not.”64 Autumn Rhythm, which was subtitled Number 30, 1950, was one of a series of wall- sized works Pollock produced in that year; others included One: Number 31, 1950, which was slightly larger than Autumn Rhythm, and Number 32, 1950, which was 12% smaller.65 Barnett Newman often stated his belief that the size of a painting was unimportant in itself, and he followed Vir Heroicus Sublimis by painting Cathedra, another work the same size, in the same year.66 In contrast, the larger French works - not only the wall-sized Guernica, but also Courbet’s L’Atelier, Seurat’s Grande Jatte, Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon, and others, stood out in these artists’ work: each was by far the largest painting the artist produced in that period.67 It is thus not only the absolute size, but also the size of these paintings relative to each artist’s other work, that signals the French artists’ intent to create an individual work of particular importance. Unlike the paintings of the Americans considered here, those of the French artists generally reflect the recognition expressed by the young artist Frédéric Bazille in 1870: “In order to be noticed at the exhibition, one has to paint rather large pictures that demand very conscientious preparatory studies and thus occasion a good deal of expense.”68 In sum, the evidence of Table 7 appears consistent with the view that the French painters considered here conceived their most important works in a different manner from the Americans who followed them. Conclusion The dominant form of exhibition in nineteenth-century Paris favored a conception of artistic achievement that focused on individual master works. In contrast, the dominant 25 exhibition type in twentieth-century New York privileged a conception of artistic success that considered an artist’s recent output more generally, as evidenced in larger bodies of work. Painters who seek critical and financial success must take account of prevailing exhibition practices in producing their work. In nineteenth-century Paris, the central role of large group exhibitions meant that artists had to devote considerable effort to producing important individual pieces. In twentieth-century New York, the dominance of one-man gallery shows shifted the job of the artist from making striking individual works to producing larger numbers of paintings that would make up significant shows. Differences in exhibition practices thus appear to explain why the most famous modern paintings are not by American artists. American modern artists have not produced paintings as famous as those of their French predecessors not because they were less important artists, or because they produced less important innovations, but rather because of a change in the market environment they faced. In revealing a specific way in which market institutions have influenced artistic practices, this investigation underscores the fact that the study of market conditions is central to an understanding of the history of modern art. 26 1. Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), p. 1. 2. David W. Galenson, “Quantifying Artistic Success: Ranking French Painters - and Paintings - from Impressionism to Cubism,” Historical Methods (forthcoming, 2001); Galenson, “Was Jackson Pollock the Greatest American Modern Painter? A Quantitative Investigation,” (unpublished paper, 2001). 3. For additional discussion, see David W. Galenson, Painting outside the Lines: Patterns of Creativity in Modern Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 24-26. 4. For lists of the artists considered, see Galenson, “Quantifying Artistic Success,” Table 1, and Galenson, “Was Jackson Pollock the Greatest American Modern Painter? Table 1. 5. These books are listed in the appendix. 6. Bruno S. Frey, “Superstar Museums: An Economic Analysis,” Journal of Cultural Economics, Vol. 22, Nos. 2-3 (1988), p. 115; Martin Feldstein, editor, The Economics of Art Museums (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 13-14. 7. Support for the observation that the American artists failed to produce famous individual works comes from a very different source. In 1979 the eminent art historian Kenneth Clark delivered a lecture titled “What is a Masterpiece?” Clark answered the question inductively, discussing a series of examples that ranged widely in time. Clark’s lecture concluded chronologically with Courbet’s Funeral at Ornans, Manet’s Olympia, and Picasso’s Woman with a Guitar and Guernica. Thus Clark considered no painting made after 1937; nor did he explain why he neglected paintings done in the 42 years that preceded his lecture. Clark’s conservatism can be cited as the explanation for his lack of interest in recent art, but that in this context he was able to ignore all art of the 1950s and ‘60s without comment was made possible, or at least facilitated, by the absence of widely recognized and acclaimed individual works from these decades. See Kenneth Clark, What is a Masterpiece? (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1981). 8. Cézanne is a prime example of an artist whose work developed gradually, and I would argue that this accounts for his absence from this study. For discussion see Galenson, Painting Outside the Lines, Chapter 5. 9. A widely accepted study of the shift from large group exhibitions to one-artist shows in private galleries is Harrison C. White and Cynthia A. White, Canvases and Careers: Footnotes I thank Robert Jensen for discussions of the issues treated in this paper, and the National Science Foundation for financial support. 27 Institutional Change in the French Painting World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). A different interpretation of this shift will be offered in David W. Galenson and Robert Jensen, “Careers and Canvases: The Rise of the Market for Modern Art in the Nineteenth Century” (in preparation). 10. Robert Jensen, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 23. 11. Lethève, Daily Life of French Artists in the Nineteenth Century (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972), p. 108. 12. Patricia Mainardi, The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 18-19, 47. 13. Hamilton, Manet and his Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), p. 15. 14. Gustave Courbet, Letters of Gustave Courbet (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 53. 15. Patricia Mainardi, Art and Politics of the Second Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 59-65. 16. Courbet, Letters of Gustave Courbet, p. 139. 17. Anne Coffin Hanson, Manet and the Modern Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 44. 18. From 1881, the official Salon was replaced by the Salon of the Société des Artistes Francais. In 1884 the Société des Artistes Indépendents began to hold an annual Salon, as did the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890. In 1903 these were joined by the Salon d’Automne. For discussion see Mainardi, The End of the Salon, pp. 84-86. 19. E.g. White and White, Canvases and Careers, pp. 144-45, 150-51. 20. Jensen, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe, Chapter 3. 21. Martha Ward, Pissarro, Neo-Impressionism, and the Spaces of the Avant-Garde (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 5. Ward continued: “This was despite the fact that the justifications that had been offered for the production of such paintings and their display in the French public arena - moral didacticism, nationalist sentiments, cultural heritage - had been seriously undermined by the apparent debasement of history painting into a theatricalized, trivialized or propagandized mode of entertainment, and by the gradual demise of any serious commitment to that type of painting on the part of many of the audiences held in high esteem;” ibid. 28 22. Ward observes that “Seurat’s habit of producing a large painting annually [was] perhaps a carry-over from preparing works for the Salon;” ibid., p. 107. 23. David Sweetman, Paul Gauguin (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), pp. 130, 201. Also see Mark Roskill, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and the Impressionist Circle (Greenwich Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1970), p. 96. 24. Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), pp. 130-35. 25. A minor work of his was shown at the Spanish pavilion of the 1900 Exposition Universelle, but he would not again participate in a large group exhibition until World War I; Marilyn McCully, editor, Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906 (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1997), p. 143; Pierre Daix, Picasso (New York: Harper Collins, 1994), pp. 152-53. 26. John Richardson, A Life of Picasso: The Early Years, 1881-1906 (New York: Random House, 1991), pp. 411-14. 27. Daix, Picasso, p. 56. 28. William Rubin, Hélène Seckel, and Judith Cousins, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1994), pp. 14, 119. 29. David Cottington, “What the Papers Say: Politics and Ideology in Picasso’s Collages of 1912,” Art Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Winter, 1988), pp. 353-54. 30. Calvin Tomkins, The Bride and the Bachelors (New York: Viking Press, 1968), p. 67. 31. Pierre Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp (New York: Da Capo Press, 1987), p. 69. 32. Barnett Newman, Selected Writings and Interviews (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 305. 33. Stephanie Terenzio, editor, The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 161-62; also see Deirdre Robson, “The Avant-Garde and the On-Guard: Some Influences on the Potential Market for the First Generation Abstract Expressionists in the 1940s and Early 1950s,” Art Journal, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Fall, 1988), pp. 217-20. 34. Alan Bowness has remarked that the replacement of public group exhibitions by private gallery shows is “an innovation too little recognized;” The Conditions of Success (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1990), pp. 39-42. 29 35. Clement Greenberg, The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 16. 36. Ibid., p. 124. 37. Henry Geldzahler, Making It New (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1994), p. 111. 38. Thomas B. Hess, Willem de Kooning (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1968), p. 149. 39. James E. B. Breslin, Mark Rothko (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 329. 40. Clifford Ross, editor, Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), pp. 197, 214. 41. David Sylvester, About Modern Art (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), p. 353. 42. Anna C. Chave, Mark Rothko (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 11-12. 43. Kirk Varnedoe, Jackson Pollock (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1998), pp. 48-50. 44. Michael Fried, Art and Objecthood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 257-58; Philip Fisher, Making and Effacing Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 22-23, 118-19, 174; Geldzahler, Making It New, p. 52. 45. Victor Bockris, Warhol (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 151. 46. Ibid., p. 153. 47. Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “Andy Warhol’s One-Dimensional Art: 1956-1966,” in Kynaston McShine, editor, Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1989), p. 54. 48. Steven Henry Madoff, editor, Pop Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 267. Warhol’s portrayals of Marilyn Monroe appear to be his most popular among art historians, as they account for a total of 20 illustrations in the books surveyed for this study. 49. Charles F. Stuckey, “Warhol in Context,” in Gary Garrels, editor, The Work of Andy Warhol (Seattle: Bay Press, 1989), pp. 3-4. 50. Paintings from the show are listed in Kirk Varnedoe, Jasper Johns: A Retrospective (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1996), p. 128. 51. Jasper Johns, Writings, Sketchbook Notes, Interviews (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1996), p. 82. 30 52. Ibid., p. 82. 53. William S. Rubin, Frank Stella (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1970), p. 12. 54. Leo Castelli, Jasper Johns: 35 Years (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1993), not paginated. 55. Calvin Tomkins, Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), p. 71. 56. Walter Hopps and Susan Davidson, Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective (New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1997), pp. 56-59. 57. Tomkins, The Bride and the Bachelors, p. 236. 58. Walter Hopps, “Introduction,” in Hopps and Davidson, Robert Rauschenberg, p. 24. 59. E.g. see Thérèse Burollet, “Pompier Art,” in Alexander V. J. Gaudieri, et. al., William Bouguereau (Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1984), pp. 31-38. 60. Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Vol. 3 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1958), p. 34. 61. John Rewald, Post-Impressionism (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1956), p. 202. 62. Denis Rouart, Edouard Manet (Paris: Flammarion, 1970), pp. 115-21; Pierre Schneider, The World of Manet (New York: Time-Life Books, 1968), p. 172. 63. David Shapiro and Cecile Shapiro, Abstract Expressionism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 97. 64. Pepe Karmel, editor, Jackson Pollock (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1998), pp. 17, 22. 65. E. A. Carmean and Eliza E. Rathbone, American Art at Mid-Century (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1978), pp. 133-36. 66. Newman, Selected Writings and Interviews, pp. 198, 271-72; Thomas B. Hess, Barnett Newman (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1971), p. 78. 67. E.g. Alan Bowness, Courbet’s L’Atelier du Peintre (Newcastle: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1972), p. 3; John Rewald, Georges Seurat (New York: Wittenborn, 1943), p. 20; Roland Penrose, Picasso (New York: Harper 1959), p. 124; Alfred H. Barr, Matisse (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1951), pp. 81-82. 68. John Rewald, The History of Impressionism, revised edition (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1961), p. 140. Table 1: Ranking of Most Illustrated French Paintings Rank % of books Artist, title Date Location 1 91 Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon 1907 New York 2 76 Picasso, Guernica 1937 Madrid 3 73 Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte 1886 Chicago 4(t) 64 Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 1912 Philadelphia 4(t) 64 Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe 1863 Paris 6 61 Manet, Bar at the Folies-Bergère 1882 London 7 48 Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even 1923 Philadelphia 8(t) 45 Courbet, L’Atelier 1855 Paris 8(t) 45 Gauguin, The Vision After the Sermon 1888 Edinburgh 8(t) 45 Manet, Olympia 1863 Paris 8(t) 45 Matisse, The Joy of Life 1906 Merion, PA Source: Galenson, “Quantifying Artistic Success,” Table 3. Table 2: Ranking of Most Illustrated American Paintings Rank % of books Artist, title Date Location 1 36 de Kooning, Woman I 1952 New York 2 34 Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis 1951 New York 3 31 Lichtenstein, Whaam! 1963 London 4(t) 27 de Kooning, Excavation 1950 Chicago 4(t) 27 Rauschenberg, Bed 1955 New York 4(t) 27 Rauschenberg, Monogram 1959 Stockholm 7(t) 23 Gorky, The Liver is the Cock’s Comb 1944 Buffalo 7(t) 23 Johns, Flag 1958 New York 7(t) 23 Johns, Three Flags 1954 New York 7(t) 23 Pollock, Autumn Rhythm 1950 New York 7(t) 23 Warhol, Marilyn Diptych 1962 London Source: Galenson, “Was Jackson Pollock the Greatest American Modern Painter?” Table 3. Table 3: Ranking of Paintings from Tables 1 and 2, by Total Illustrations in Common Books Rank N % of books Artist, Title 1 28 97 Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon 2 23 79 Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte 3 22 76 Picasso, Guernica 4 18 62 Manet, Olympia 5(t) 17 59 Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe 5(t) 17 59 Manet, Bar at the Folies-Bergère 7 15 52 Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 8 14 48 Matisse, The Joy of Life 9 13 45 Gauguin, The Vision After the Sermon 10 12 41 Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even 11(t) 11 38 Courbet, L’Atelier 11(t) 11 38 Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis 11(t) 11 38 Rauschenberg, Monogram 14 9 31 Lichtenstein, Whaam! 15(t) 8 28 de Kooning, Woman I 15(t) 8 28 Warhol, Marilyn Diptych 17(t) 7 24 Johns, Flag 17(t) 7 24 Johns, Three Flags 17(t) 7 24 Pollock, Autumn Rhythm 20(t) 5 17 Gorky, The Liver is the Cock’s Comb 20(t) 5 17 de Kooning, Excavation 20(t) 5 17 Rauschenberg, Bed Source: see text and appendix. Table 4: Ranking of Other Works by Artists Included in Tables 1 and 2 that Appear in More than One Quarter of the Books Surveyed Rank N % of books Artist, Title Date Location 1 15 52 Courbet, The Stone Breakers 1894 Unknown 2 14 48 Picasso, Three Musicians 1921 New York 3 11 38 Courbet, Funeral at Ornans 1849 Paris 4(t) 9 31 Matisse, Green Stripe (Mme. Matisse) 1905 Copenhagen 4(t) 9 31 Matisse, Harmony in Red 1909 Leningrad 6(t) 8 28 Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel 1951 New York 6(t) 8 28 Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q. 1919 New York 6(t) 8 28 Gauguin, Where do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897 Boston 6(t) 8 28 Gauguin, Manao Tupapau 1892 Buffalo 6(t) 8 28 Matisse, Red Studio 1911 New York 6(t) 8 28 Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning 1912 Paris Source: see text and appendix. Table 5: Total Illustrations for All Painters Considered by this Study Rank N Painter 1 343 Picasso 2 159 Matisse 3 93 Manet 4 85 Duchamp 5 83 Gauguin 6 69 Pollock 7 60 Johns 8(t) 52 Courbet 8(t) 52 Warhol 10(t) 46 Rauschenberg 10(t) 46 Seurat 12 39 Lichtenstein 13 32 de Kooning 14 24 Newman 15 22 Gorky Source: see text and appendix. Table 6: Total Illustrations of Each Artist in the Single Years Listed in Table 3 Rank N Artist Year 1 52 Picasso 1907 2 37 Manet 1863 3 36 Warhol 1962 4 32 Picasso 1937 5(t) 26 Pollock 1950 5(t) 26 Seurat 1886 7(t) 25 Duchamp 1912 7(t) 25 Johns 1955 9 19 Lichtenstein 1963 10(t) 17 Manet 1882 10(t) 17 Matisse 1906 12(t) 15 Gauguin 1888 12(t) 15 Rauschenberg 1959 14(t) 12 Courbet 1855 14(t) 12 Duchamp 1923 16 11 Newman 1951 17 10 de Kooning 1952 18 9 Johns 1958 19(t) 7 Gorky 1944 19(t) 7 Rauschenberg 1955 21 5 de Kooning 1950 Source: see text and appendix Table 7: Ranking by Size of Paintings in Table 3 Rank Artist and Painting Size (m2) 1 Picasso, Guernica 27.12 2 Courbet, L’Atelier 21.59 3 Pollock, Autumn Rhythm 13.97 4 Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis 12.44 5 Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grade Jatte 6.38 6 Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon 5.66 7 Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe 5.62 8 de Kooning, Excavation 5.29 9 Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even 4.88 10 Gorky, The Liver is the Cock’s Comb 4.63 11 Matisse, Joy of Life 4.14 12 Rauschenberg, Monogram 3.35* 13 Warhol, Marilyn Diptych 2.95 14 de Kooning, Woman I 2.84 15 Manet, Olympia 2.49 16 Johns, Flag 1.65 17 Rauschenberg, Bed 1.53* 18 Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 1.31 19 Manet, Bar at the Folies-Bergère 1.25 20 Lichtenstein, Whaam! 1.09 21 Johns, Three Flags 0.91* 22 Gauguin, Vision After the Sermon 0.69 *These works are three-dimensional. The figure given for each is the product of their two largest dimensions. 31 Appendix: The books surveyed for this study are listed here, in chronological order. In one case, as indicated, four books that were included in a series were treated as a single book. 1. Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). 2. Sara Cornell, Art: A History of Changing Style (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983). 3. Ralph A. Britsch and Todd A. Britsch, The Arts in Western Culture (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984). 4. Dennis J. Sporre, The Arts (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984). 5. Edmund Burke Feldman, Thinking About Art (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985). 6. H. H. Arnason and Daniel Wheeler, History of Modern Art, third edition (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986). 7. Frederick Hartt, Art, third edition (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989). 8. Michael Wood, Bruce Cole, and Adelheid Gealt, Art of the Western World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989). 9. Kirk Varnedoe, A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990). 10. Horst de la Croix, Richard G. Tansey, and Diane Kirkpatrick, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, ninth edition (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991). 11. Philip Yenawine, How to Look at Modern Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991). 12. Sam Hunter and John Jacobus, Modern Art, third edition (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992). 13. Sandro Sprocati, editor, A Guide to Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992). 14. Carol Strickland, The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern (Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1992). 15. Four books treated as one: 32 Francis Frascina, Nigel Blake, Briony Fer, Tamar Garb, and Charles Harrison, Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). Charles Harrison, Francis Frascina, and Gill Perry, Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). Briony Fer, David Batchelor, and Paul Wood, Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art between the Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). Paul Wood, Francis Frascina, Jonathan Harris, and Charles Harrison, Modernism in Dispute: Art Since the Forties (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 16. Larry Silver, Art in History (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1993). 17. Laurie Schneider Adams, A History of Western Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994). 18. William Fleming, Arts and Ideas, ninth edition (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1995). 19. H. W. Janson and Anthony F. Janson, History of Art, fifth edition (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995). 20. Marilyn Stokstad and Marion Spears Grayson, Art History (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995). 21. Liz Dawtrey, Toby Jackson, Mary Masterton, Pam Meecham, and Paul Wood, Investigating Modern Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). 22. Alison Gallup, Gerhard Gruitroy, and Elizabeth M. Weisberg, Great Paintings of the Western World (New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1997). 23. David Wilkins, Bernard Schultz, and Katheryn M. Linduff, Art Past, Art Present, third edition (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997). 24. Julian Freeman, Art: A Crash Course (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1998). 25. Volker Gebhardt, The History of Art (New York: Barron’s, 1998). 26. Sandro Bocola, The Art of Modernism: Art, Culture, and Society from Goya to the Present Day (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1999). 27. Hugh Honour and John Fleming, The Visual Arts: A History (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999). 33 28. Duane Preble, Sarah Preble, and Patrick Frank, Artforms: An Introduction to the Visual Arts, sixth edition (New York: Longman, 1999). 29. Martin Kemp, editor, The Oxford History of Western Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).