Joe Newman returns to Bookselling, Brings a Fine Art Perspective
- By Bruce McKinney
Joe Newman
After five years in the rare book trade, Joe Newman, of Milford, Connecticut spent the next six selling paintings for dealers in Connecticut and New York, while writing a novel and going to graduate school for an MLA in Literature and Creative Writing. The common denominator uniting these experiences is a love of history. Joe’s desire is to make rare books, fine art, and writing part of his everyday experience, in other words, to make a living from a love affair. At thirty-six, now with a wife and two daughters, with his first novel behind him, in print and available from the principal booksellers online, he looks to make history in all its forms his life. He is becoming a bookseller for the long haul.
The paths that booksellers follow in establishing themselves in the trade are rarely straight and his is no different. Fresh from college, he worked briefly in the late 1990s for Rob Rulon-Miller in Minneapolis before heading to New York to work for Barnes & Noble.com in their fledgling used and rare book department. Soon after, he moved on to New Haven to work for Bill Reese for four years. While there he began work on his first novel, The Freeman’s Oath, a coming-of-age story about a young, struggling bookseller who discovers the only known copy of the Oath of a Free-man, the first document ever printed in British North America. In 2002, while working for William Reese Company, he entered graduate school in Cambridge to hone his writing skills and obtain a master’s degree. After leaving William Reese Company in 2004, he spent a year writing his novel before entering the art business in 2005 to focus on paintings with historical themes.
During his years in the art business, he worked at the Cooley Gallery in Old Lyme, Connecticut, the home of American Impressionism. After the Cooley Gallery, Joe worked at a prominent Upper East Side gallery and a leading American auction house before setting out on his own this past June. During these years he honed his perspective on collecting, concluding that many among the next generation of collectors would approach their avocations in a non-sectarian way, mixing books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera with paintings. His unusual background in both books and fine art prepared him for this new perspective.
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Joe Newman returns to Bookselling, Brings a Fine Art Perspective
- By Bruce McKinney
The Freeman's Oath
In focusing on this mixed media approach, now a dozen years after he first embraced the field, he is taking both traditional and contemporary paths. In the long established way, he is building a stock, planning to attend and exhibit at shows, and preparing to issue catalogues. As he knows from his years crafting descriptions at the Reese Company, a great story sells a great book. In this sense, he is a throwback to the era when books were sold, not simply described. But he is also a contemporary with the next generation of collectors and is honing his craft and presentation to resonate with them. For them, and all others that are interested, he has begun to delve into stories that illuminate subjects and inspire collecting. It is an original approach, a work of love and dedication that, if it succeeds, may help illuminate the path forward for dealers entering the field in this transitional period. It is already likely that the traditional approach to dealing, now frayed from huge increases in availability, and the corresponding narrowing of collector focus, will adjust in unpredictable ways. The field, in short, is ripe for change. A well-researched blog, with luck, may build an audience and for this dealer now committing himself to a career in the mixed media of collected history, create a business with a dependable income. It is a noteworthy undertaking.
He has created a web site that is up-to-date as well as ever changing to reflect the ephemeral nature of the web.
www.jfnewman.com
He is blogging intermittently but roughly every two weeks.
The Newman Blog
He assures that the blogging is a lot of fun. It is also no doubt a lot of work. Joe, as a professional writer, with a love of history, is determined to tell interesting, well researched stories. My sense is that this is the direction the professional field is headed but it’s a new direction and it’s work.
If you would like to buy his book, The Freeman’s Oath [link]
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