Give Me the Now: An Autobiography
by: Rudolf Zwirner (2021)
Rudolf Zwirner, âthe man who invented the art market,â as coined in Der Spiegel, reflects on more than sixty years in the art business in his authoritative autobiography.
âAmericans now see Germany as a natural breeding ground for mighty gallerists and collectors, but Rudolf Zwirnerâs fascinating new memoir walks us through the decades it took to rebuild an art world shattered by World War II. In this dealerâs charming telling, however, the work involved sounds more like play than labor.â âBlake Gopnik, author of Warhol
An art dealer of the ages, Rudolf Zwirner, father of the esteemed gallerist David Zwirner, reached many milestones in his career. From cofounding Art Cologne, the first fair for contemporary art, in 1967, to showing works by Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol, Zwirner transformed the contemporary art scene in Cologne. Born in 1933, he presented more than three hundred exhibitions from the early 1960s to 1992. In his autobiography, Zwirner reveals stories of artists, his gallery, and his most important collector, Peter Ludwig, whose collection forms the cornerstone of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.  First published in 2019 in German, and translated and adapted here for the first time in English, the book explores the most significant moments of Zwirnerâs career and the fast-changing postwar art world. Also included in this edition is a new foreword by Lucas Zwirner, Rudolfâs grandson, who reflects on his grandfatherâs role in bringing us to the global art landscape we find ourselves in now. Â
âAmericans now see Germany as a natural breeding ground for mighty gallerists and collectors, but Rudolf Zwirnerâs fascinating new memoir walks us through the decades it took to rebuild an art world shattered by World War II. In this dealerâs charming telling, however, the work involved sounds more like play than labor.â âBlake Gopnik, author of Warhol
An art dealer of the ages, Rudolf Zwirner, father of the esteemed gallerist David Zwirner, reached many milestones in his career. From cofounding Art Cologne, the first fair for contemporary art, in 1967, to showing works by Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol, Zwirner transformed the contemporary art scene in Cologne. Born in 1933, he presented more than three hundred exhibitions from the early 1960s to 1992. In his autobiography, Zwirner reveals stories of artists, his gallery, and his most important collector, Peter Ludwig, whose collection forms the cornerstone of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.  First published in 2019 in German, and translated and adapted here for the first time in English, the book explores the most significant moments of Zwirnerâs career and the fast-changing postwar art world. Also included in this edition is a new foreword by Lucas Zwirner, Rudolfâs grandson, who reflects on his grandfatherâs role in bringing us to the global art landscape we find ourselves in now. Â
The Reviews
The book has a very wordy first few pages that are not that interesting. As well, be forewarned: the book was incorrectly assembled and sections are not out of sync in page numbers - but the entire book is there.
