How Much Is That T. Rex in the Window?

There’s a scene in Woody Allen’s 1986 film, Hannah and Her Sisters, where Elliot (Michael Caine) takes newly minted rock star Dusty Fry (Daniel Stern) to see some drawings by brooding, miserable, uptight artist Frederick (Max von Sydow). “Dusty just bought this huge house in Southampton,” a caption explains. Frederick’s girlfriend, Lee (Barbara Hershey), suggests Dusty looks at the oils in the studio basement. “Are they BIG?” asks Dusty, who already owns “a big, weird” Frank Stella. “I’m looking for something big. Because I got a lot of wall space.”

The exchange was Allen’s way of acknowledging a new trend for purchasing art at a grand scale. In the 1980s, collectors were after large-format sculptures and canvases to fit their house size, floor acreage, wall dimensions, and, most of all, status. That’s still the case, but the houses have gotten exponentially larger.