Few art world stories read like a political thriller, but Oliver Hoare’s The Exchange manages exactly that. Published posthumously, this memoir lays bare the tangled circumstances behind what remains one of the most audacious cultural transactions of the late 20th century.
At its core is the 1994 deal that saw Willem de Kooning’s Woman III traded for the most prized section of the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, the 16th-century Persian manuscript often regarded as the pinnacle of Islamic book art. Staged on the tarmac at Vienna airport, the clandestine swap was quickly labelled the “cultural coup of the 1990s.” Hoare, who died in 2018, places himself firmly at the centre of events—not with self-congratulation, but with the assured storytelling of someone who understood both the absurdities and gravities of the trade.
The memoir works on two levels, first, as a step-by-step account of an improbable deal negotiated across opaque political and diplomatic lines. Hoare’s gift lies in illuminating the improbable practicalities: how one navigates not only the corridors of Tehran but also the anxieties of Western institutions. Second, the book expands into a broader portrait of the dealer’s own life—his wanderings through Iran in the 1960s and 70s, his instinctive recognition of the significance of Islamic art long before the market caught up, and his taste for the improbable.
What makes The Exchange compelling is not simply the revelation of behind-the-scenes manoeuvring by this former lover of Princess Dianna but the tone of Hoare’s voice: wry, anecdotal, always alive to the comic detail, even when recounting matters of cultural statecraft. It is at once a memoir, a travelogue, and a reminder that art history often turns on the risks taken by individuals willing to test the boundaries of the possible.