New York-based arts writer and journalist Judd Tully has been steeped in the international art market since the mid-1970s. He discusses the trajectory of his career and elucidates the international art market, auctions, art fairs, and different levels of artists’ careers.

“The art world is a bizarre place. There’s a lot of business, but the business, unlike other industries––and certainly the art market is an industry––it’s really mom and pop, these small operations. But when you’re talking about a gallery that has turnover of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, that’s not mom and pop. Still, I think the whole thing’s pretty much generated by handshakes or the gentleman’s agreement, without contracts, involving lots of money.”

Judd Tully is an arts writer and editor at large for Art + Auction and ARTINFO. He has covered auctions, art fairs, and exhibitions for nearly forty years. He got his start writing for underground papers in Berkely, CA, before moving to Manhattan and writing about art for the SoHo Weekly News, an early competitor of the Village Voice. Tully was subsequently a freelance writer for the Washington Post, Flash Art, The New Art Examiner, and numerous other publications.