"Art Versus Collectibles" Edward C. Banfield, in Harper's (August 1982), P.O. Box 2620, Boulder, Colo. 80321.
When former Vice-president Nelson Rockefeller began selling high- quality reproductions of his private art collection, the art world was shocked. Hilton Kramer, former art critic of the New York Times, lamented "a new era of hype and shamelessness." Banfield, a Harvard government professor, argues that Rockefeller had the right idea.
The same connoisseur who buys recorded...