OPINION: An Insider’s Indictment of an Isolated Art World

Honoré Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage, 1864. Oil on canvas, Dimensions: 25 3/4 x 35 1/2 in. (65.4 x 90.2 cm). From the H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929, Object Number: 29.100.129.

A painting rendered in dark colors of a family riding in the third class part of a train carriage with top-hatted heads behind them. The woman is nursing a baby.

New York dealer Georges Bergès contends that the era of art as the private reserve of the intelligentsia is ending. The question the industry must reckon with is what will succeed it.

OPINION: An Insider’s Indictment of an Isolated Art World