ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the relationship between modernism and the conditions of the modern art market, focusing on early-20th-century London, when and where the spaces and practices of the commercial art gallery, museum, and global trade intersected as manifested in the founding Yamanaka & Co., which opened its London branch, specializing in Japanese goods, in 1900, and the Persian Art Gallery, which launched in early 1911. Through these case studies, this essay argues for an expansive definition of modernism, one that includes not only the visual signifiers of breaking with past traditions but also the conditions and practices of global encounters and cosmopolitanism, and how these were shaped by and through the volatile power dynamics of colonialism, imperialism, and racism.
