LONDON.- The reasons why long-neglected works of art come to be appreciated again are complex and elusive. However, one thing is certain: the process begins with a small circle of dealers , scholars and collectors who become interested in unfashionable or unfamiliar art. These are the enthusiasts who take the risks, who buy the paintings, who write the articles, and who put on the gallery shows that no one at first understands. Once this group has generated interest, museums mount major exhibitions and journalists write their reviews. Later on come the academic theorists, and finally the general public.

In the first half of the 20th century, dealers who were also important scholars existed mostly in Europe. The archetype of the scholar-dealer was César de Hauke, who not only left his outstanding collection of 19th-century French drawings to the British Museum, but was also the author of the catalogue of the complete work of Georges Seurat, and (with Paul Brame) Edgar Degas. The art dealer and connoisseur Paul Rosenberg published the first catalogue of Paul Cézanne’s complete work, while another dealer, Walter Feilchenfeldt, is still editing the second. The list goes on: Heinz Berggruen on Juan Gris, Eberhard Kornfeld on Max Beckmann, Otto and Jane Kallir on Egon Schiele. These figures saw no conflict between making their living by selling art, and the demands of dispassionate scholarship. Indeed, it was their constant contact with actual objects that gave them the expertise to be able to write so authoritatively on their subjects. In England, the tradition of the scholar-dealer did not exist until after the Second World War, when a number of world-renowned scholars began dealing in Old Master paintings and drawings.

By the 1960s the rigid line between the art trade and museums began to break down. The distinction was further blurred by the institution of academic loan exhibitions, where certain London dealers mounted superb shows in co-operation with museums. Over and over you find that interest in a new or unexplored area of art history in Britain was dealer- led. Unlike other professions, art dealers are usually cultivated men and women who adhere to the highest professional standards. It is time the contribution dealers make to art history was acknowledged and celebrated.