PREFACE

TUDOR-ART Independent Index, which indexes the Romanian art market, is not a simple gathering of public art sales, but rather the result of an elaborate research over a long period of time of the works and lives of Romanian artists and foreign artists who were present with their works in the Romanian auction houses. We have added our own work to the work developed by the auction houses, in some cases acting tacitly in adjusting some of the initial information. Keeping the data indexed here accurate is and will always be the most important working principle of TUDOR-ART index.

The index contains public art sales that took place in Romanian auction houses, as well as in some of the galleries that communicate the official public sales online, over the period January 1, 1995-December 31,2011, first edition (Januay 1, 1995-December 31, 2012, second edition and January 1, 2005-December 31, 2016, third edition). A presentation of these institutions will be given in the following pages. They will also be provided as sources of information at the end of each entry in the index.

The quotations of the artists can be seen here in their chronological evolution for a long time. It is universally accepted that we cannot talk about a market quotation in any other way but by looking at the official art sales. The quotations identified by using the TUDOR-ART index cannot be interpreted as valid in any other art markets but the Romanian market, where they were carried out.

In both the inaugural edition, written in Romanian, and this edition, written in a language of international circulation, the information is presented in detail in order to support the activities of assessment and research that are taking place in other institutions present on the art market: museums, galleries, libraries, cultural organizations.

The main objective of the author is to offer a simple and reliable tool for research and direction in an area that for many less initiated users seems to be an extremely elitist area.