An Object of Beauty

by Steve Martin

Overview

Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the NYC art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights—and, at times, the dark lows—of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446573658
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	11/15/2011
Pages:	295
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Steve Martin is a legendary writer, actor, and performer. His film credits include Father of the Bride, Parenthood, The Spanish Prisoner, and Bringing Down the House, as well as Roxanne, L.A. Story, and Bowfinger, for which he also wrote the screenplays.

He's won Emmys for his television writing and two Grammys for comedy albums. In addition to a play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, he has written a bestselling collection of comic pieces, Pure Drivel, and a bestselling novella, Shopgirl, which was made into a movie. His work appears frequently in The New Yorker and The New York Times.

Hometown:

Beverly Hills, California

Date of Birth:

August 14, 1945

Place of Birth:

Waco, Texas

Education:

Long Beach State College; University of California, Los Angeles

Website:

http://www.stevemartin.com

Editorial Reviews

…[a] graceful novel. If Martin isn't a talented art critic himself, he does a convincing imitation of one. Insightful but modest, sophisticated but deeply skeptical of po-mo gobbledygook, he offers engaging commentary on Milton Avery, Picasso, Warhol and many others…Given Martin's capacity for zaniness, the subtlety of his fiction is always something of a surprise, particularly in this case when the claptrap of so much contemporary art makes a ripe subject for comedy. There's certainly humor in An Object of Beauty, but Martin doesn't waste much powder on the easy targets.
—The Washington Post

Ron Charles

The expertise of Martin, himself a longtime collector…is dazzlingly in evidence here. The text is as useful an idiosyncratic art-history primer as it is a piece of fiction…As fiction, though, it is thoroughly delightful, evoking a vanished gilded age with impertinence but never contempt…Though Martin is merciless at parsing the pretension of the contemporary art scene…its suffusion with international cash clearly thrills and animates him. His minor characters…are as carefully drawn as his major ones.
—The New York Times Book Review

Alexandra Jacobs

…what really animates this book is Mr. Martin's own sense of how the upward-mobility game is played at galleries, auction houses and art-world watering holes. This book does a wonderfully nostalgic job of capturing the "fresh and clean New York," so full of new money, beautiful young things and Gatsbyesque promise, that facilitates Lacey's uphill climb.
—The New York Times

Janet Maslin

A legendary actor, comedian, and writer (Shopgirl; Born Standing Up) gifts us with a perceptive illustrated novel about glamour and subterfuge in the New York fine art market of the late nineties and beyond. At its center is Lacey Yeager, a talented, ardently ambitious Manhattan gallery dealer. A typically whimsical, insightful Steve Martin concoction. A gracefully turned fiction. Editor's recommendation.

The NYC art world, seen through the eyes of its most impartial constituents.

In his latest novel, Martin (Born Standing Up, 2007, etc.) unveils an ambitious and heartfelt analysis of both the complexity and absurdity of the Manhattan art market. It begins, appropriately enough, with a confession. "I am tired, so very tired of thinking about Lacey Yeager, yet I worry that unless I write her story down, and see the manuscript bound and tidy on my bookshelf, I will be unable to ever write about anything else." This declaration spills from arts writer David Franks, who finds a small universe encapsulated in the life of his subject, ex-lover Lacey. From this humble beginning, David chronicles the rise and fall of the fine-art market from the late '90s through the present day, complete with record-breaking prices, art thefts and the premature globalization of a complex system. After college, Lacey and David enter the burgeoning artistic world, Lacey as a grunt at Sotheby's, David as a struggling writer. David habitually profiles Lacey, an insanely determined dealer with a passion for creativity and wealth. Martin offers fascinating literary capers, mixing in real-life elements like a fictional run-in with novelist John Updike and the spectacular $500 million dollar theft at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. As Lacey graduates to art speculation and gallery ownership, Martin populates her world with a host of compelling characters, among them a desperately infatuated Parisian broker, a manipulative and powerful mentor, and Pilot Mouse, a minor boyfriend who reinvents himself as a Banksy-like artistic guerrilla. To add to the reader's experience, Martin includes reproductions of artwork referenced in the text, lending another layer of sophistication to an already absorbing story.

An artfully told tale of trade, caste and the obsessive mindset of collectors.

Kirkus Reviews