ArtTactic

In this week’s episode of the ArtTactic Podcast, we chat with Lee Kaplan, founder and co-owner of Arcana: Books on the Arts. First, Lee tell us about the origins of the shop and what exactly they do as specialists in new, rare, and out of print books, catalogues, and ephemera on 20th + 21st century Art. Established in 1984, Lee then explains how art books were utilized in that pre-digital era. Today, with the digitization of books, he then explains how people predominantly use art books. Also, Lee describes the health of the first edition art book market at the moment and identifies interesting trends. Additionally, Lee discusses the Amazon Effect on the art book market, gives advice for beginning art book collectors and shares the backstory behind the Getty Research Institute acquiring an archive of materials on African-American Art and Artists that Lee had compiled for decades.