A Review of Michael Findlay’s “Portrait of the Art Dealer as a Young Man, New York in the Sixties”

Along with numerous essays and exhibition catalogues, Findlay managed to write several influential books about the business of art. He is a contributing author of The Expert versus The Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts, published by Oxford University Press in 2004. 

His book, The Value of Art: Money, Power, Beauty, was published by Prestel in 2012. An expanded edition was released in 2022, updated with new material, including the impact of the pandemic on the art world. His second book, Seeing Slowly: Looking At Modern Art, was published in August 2017. 

These books are essential reading for anyone seeking to learn more about recognizing the true value of art. My job as a reviewer for Art & Object was to interview Findlay on the occasion of the publication of his most personal— and perhaps most revealing— memoir, Portrait of the Art Dealer as a Young Man, subtitled, New York in the Sixties, published by Prestel this fall, 2024.

Pleasingly designed, this funny, generous, irreverent, and informative book includes many informal photos and stories of the rich and famous in the years before they became icons of American culture. 

Replete with intimate recollections of relationships with artists Andy Warhol (1928-1987), David Hockney (1937-), Bridget Riley (1931-), James Rosenquist (1933-2017), Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), among others, the book also includes anecdotes, like the time a visitor to the Feigen Gallery– where Findlay was serving as manager– mistook the painter Alice Neel (1900-1984) for a bag lady. Neel had a habit of hanging out at the gallery and had not yet received the much belated attention she is receiving today. 

In conversation with A&O in August, just prior to the publication of this memoir, Findlay’s modesty and dry humor were evident. He acknowledged, “My lack of any formal art training was beneficial. I had no vocabulary to talk about art beyond ‘I know what I like’, I had no hard-and-fast principles about what art should or should not be.” 

Findlay was not shy about expressing his opinion of the British critic Lawrence Alloway (1926-1990), who was a contributor to the magazine Art Forum. Alloway claimed to have first applied the term “Pop Art” to describe the NY-based art movement covered in this book. 

In speaking about developing his own art vocabulary, Findlay explained, “I found the language of Art Forum impossible to understand.” Art Forum is known for dense descriptions filled with art jargon understood by the elite few. 

Findlay’s affinity for art was embedded in his childhood. In this book’s opening scene, he describes the moment, in 1952, when his 7-year-old self was standing with his grandmother in front of Salvador Dali’s giant painting, Christ of Saint John on the Cross (1951). It had just been installed in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. 

He recalls this moment, “For her, a deeply pious Catholic, this is an occasion for silent prayer. For me, it is the beginning of my passion for modern art… I am cross-obsessed, thanks to my Catholic upbringing.”   

In the first chapter, Findlay discusses his familial relationships, quoting his father, “You were just one for the road.” (Findlay had two older brothers.) Findlay also “acquired the ability to appear to be listening from my mother,” something that would prove beneficial later as he made a place for himself in the bubbling New York social scene of the 1960s. He felt a connection to his great uncle, Daniel James Duffy, who was an artist. 

The powerful Dali-induced experience with art was followed by many others. “I spent my meager childhood earnings on reproductions. I pinned the poster of Frans Hals’ Laughing Cavalier on my bedroom wall.” The young Findlay also “had a keen interest in all things American… I sent for a photo of Roy Rogers on his horse Trigger.” 

His feelings for “Modern” art came about through his perceptive response to the enigmatic 1838 painting The Fighting Temeraire by J.M.W. Turner. Findlay was also practical, “I had an early appreciation for the fact that people paid money for art.” 

Another telling moment in the book involved Mr. Anthony Kerr, his boarding school art teacher, who divided the class into those who could create art and those who must learn how to ‘see’ art: “lookers vs doers.”  Findlay was singled out as one of the “lookers.” He went on to attend York University in Toronto, Canada, but the lure of New York City was too much to ignore. He dropped out of school and headed to NYC in 1964, “a cultural inflection point.” As it happened, “A nibble of the Big Apple became the rest of my life.”

Findlay’s first real art job was working for the Richard Feigen Gallery at 24 East 81st Street. He helped borrow works from Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Arman, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Segal, Robert Indiana, Wesselmann, and Christo. 

“I met Andy Warhol, who became a friend for over 23 years.” Findlay credits Feigen for believing in him and giving him the freedom to grow as a curator and a dealer of fine art. In writing about art, Findlay says, “I found words easily, and I learned from Feigen who never stopped talking, often on the phone, and very loudly!”

Even though Findlay had a meteoric rise less than four years after his arrival in New York City, he claims, “I didn’t have a plan, and I wasn’t ambitious.” The fact that he was very good-looking, and at 19 could have been easily identified as a red-haired version of the Beatles, Findlay fit right in with the zeitgeist of the moment. 

He did some modeling and a full-page photo of a tousle-haired, self-confident young man wearing a quintessentially 1960s star emblazoned shirt and form-fitting striped pants graces the facing title page of the book, proving my point. In 1973, Findlay married Black supermodel Naomi Sims. 

Although this was a groundbreaking event for most Americans, Findlay explains, “We were protected somewhat from prejudice by the fact I was British, and she was famous.” By this time, Findlay had established his own gallery, J.H. Duffy and Sons, one of the pioneering SOHO art venues. It was named after his great uncle, and it was here that Findlay showed Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) to the American public for the first time. 

So many big, important art and entertainment world names are dropped at lightning speed throughout this text; it was difficult to keep track of who was doing what to whom without keeping notes. 

But, Findlay’s tell-all approach, naming names, as well as prices and process, real estate maneuvers and relationship maneuvers, make for a fascinating, revealing, and sometimes tawdry picture that successfully removes the mystic of how value is manufactured in the art world. In parting, Findlay shared these encouraging words, “However, I do believe as the history of art moves on, what comes to the surface, what remains, has the essential nature of quality.”