Giorgio de Chirico e Germain Seligmann.
Manovre sul mercato americano tra 1937 e 1938

Quaderni Monografici. Dossier II
by Gerd Roos
Milan, 2012
ISBN-13: 9788889546420
Format 21 x 28 cm
112 pages b/w

The correspondence between Giorgio de Chirico and the American dealer Germain Seligmann sheds new light on the real results of the artist’s long sojourn in New York between August 1936 and the beginning of January 1938. De Chirico’s trip to America, presented as a triumph by the Italian press, was in reality a failure. This was due in part to the artist’s manoeuvres, which in keeping with an old habit, set wealthier, but less motivated big-name dealers, such as Seligmann or Wildenstein, against his first and most sincere supporter, the art dealer Julien Levy, in the hope of obtaining greater advantages. This strategy proved to be unsuccessful and had the effect of completely closing the doors of the American market to the artist’s recent production. The study concludes with the meticulous cataloguing of all works mentioned in the text, some of which are identified, making a notable contribution to a future Catalogue Raisonné of Giorgio de Chirico’s work.