Here Comes Mr Cass || Wilfred Cass

Self-published autobiographies normally suffer from a wide range of disadvantages: if their story was really interesting, a commercial publisher may have taken it up. They can be self-congratulatory; not least, they lack an editor who can remove details that, while fascinating to the author, and maybe even their family, are meaningless to the wider public.
This is different because the subject is the founder of the Cassart chain of art shops and the Cass Sculpture Foundation. He also has a gripping story to tell, which he relates readably but, above all, modestly.
The Cassier family (as they were) were industrialists and art collectors in Germany. Being Jewish, their position became dangerous in the 1930’s and Wilfred’s parents took the decision to leave, along with many others. Families that are determined to succeed will usually do so anywhere and the Casses, as they became, were no different.
Wilfred recounts, without self-congratulation, the course of how he became absorbed into the English educational system and his subsequent life in business. There’s quite a lot of archival detail that is probably of more interest to the family than anyone else, but it doesn’t intrude and you may well find that it fleshes out the narrative nicely. Overall, it’s a fascinating and heart-warming story.

This is a thoroughly readable account of the development of a major art business and the Foundation that its liberal-minded founder built up.

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