I loved Degas and Cezanne and everything he stood for and, of course, Pissarro. But lurking behind art and color and life, I sensed the heavy hand of my mother’s side of the family. Father was a stockbroker and dabbled in land but mother’s side came from banking.
In Paris when I sold my first painting and as the Impressionists gained a foothold, I realized that a certain type of buyer possessed the power to drive values upward. At first, I thought this surge would favor the artist. With higher proceeds, we could devote greater effort to our work. We could experience freedom from everyday constraints.
Little did I know, though I suspected, that art would become a business, that freedom would escape us, that we would become slaves to credit and to that certain type of buyer.
Pity mother’s side of the family.
~ Stephen J. Bergstrom
The Literary Fiction of Stephen J. Bergstrom 
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