Arcana: Books on the Arts' Lee Kaplan on the First Edition Art Book Market

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.