01 / THE ELITIST
Should I know you?
A keen instinct for knowing who matters. And a suddenly devastating smile, the moment you do.
Beauty as charm in the service of a fatal attraction.
A FORTHCOMING NOVEL BY LEO KAMEN
The Trouble
with Beauty
Art, ambition, desire—and the difficulty with knowing what matters
Meet Samuel Schecter, a New York art dealer, and Catherine Smart, an artist, whose unsettling yet hilarious exhibition blurs the boundary between the disturbing and the beautiful.
A witty, visually inventive novel from a man who spent more than 25 years running his own art gallery in Toronto.
Not yet published. Join the list for book news.
02 / THE ART WORLD
New York 1988
Good taste was big business.
The art market was booming. Prices made headlines. Artists became celebrities, and the people who sold their work became tastemakers. Behind the immaculate walls of New York’s high-end galleries, beauty, money and status were becoming difficult to separate.
It was a world of big egos and even bigger checkbooks. A perfect place for an idealist to lose his bearings.
In The Trouble with Beauty, Samuel Schecter is about to find out what his convictions are worth.
03 / A PRIVATE VIEW
Your Guide to the Gallery Owners
Meet the elitist, the bulldog, the realtor, and the shrewd operator—a glimpse into the gallery world of The Trouble with Beauty.
02 / THE BULLDOG
A force of nature
The hero at the center of his own story. He does not merely have an opinion about art. He expects the world to accommodate it.
Beauty as power. What Ayn Rand would expect from the best and the brightest.
03 / THE REALTOR
Location, location, location
Paintings priced by the square foot. The yummier the better, preferably with an intellectual hook. Looking to reside in the right neighborhood.
Beauty as product. With an eye on prestige.
04 / THE SHREWD OPERATOR
Nothing left to chance
“No, you cannot buy it.” Saving the artwork for someone more important. A client is not a collector.
Beauty for the privileged. Keeping it all in the family.
04 AND 05 / TWO EXHIBITIONS FROM THE NOVEL
CATHERINE SMART PRESENTS
How I’m Going to Murder My Mother
● NOT YOUR USUAL FAMILY SAGA
An art dealer on the ropes
The work is disturbing. The artist is compelling. Sam would very much like to believe he knows what he’s doing.
CATHERINE SMART ALSO PRESENTS
Sole Survivor
● BEAUTY IS BEGUILING
Catherine’s next exhibition takes the relationship a step further.
A pair of shoes is rarely just a pair of shoes. There is the person who buys them, and the person they imagine they become as a result.
06 / ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The view from behind the gallery desk
Leo Kamen
Leo Kamen has been a photographer, a sculptor, and an art dealer. He is best known as the former owner of the Leo Kamen Gallery in Toronto from 1985 to 2011.
Years spent working with artists, collectors, and fellow dealers has given him an inside view of the art world’s ambitions, rituals, and contradictions. The Trouble with Beauty brings that world to light.
Many books have been written documenting an artist’s struggles and championing their success. Meanwhile, the struggles that dealers face have gone unrecognized. The Trouble with Beauty seeks to redress the omission by shedding light on a world of excitement and intrigue that needs to secure its own place in our popular imagination.
07 / BOOK NEWS
Be there when the doors open
The Trouble with Beauty is forthcoming. Leave your email and we’ll let you know when you can preorder or buy the book.
TELL ME WHEN IT’S READY →Signup opens Leo’s free mailing list on Substack ↗.
Free book updates. Unsubscribe whenever you like.