1
00:00:02,240 --> 00:00:06,800
Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.

2
00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:12,280
Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have a special guest.

3
00:00:12,360 --> 00:00:16,840
Speaker 1: Her name is brook Lampley. She was the former head

4
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:21,320
Speaker 1: of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie's. She is the

5
00:00:21,440 --> 00:00:26,800
Speaker 1: incoming chairperson of Fine Art at South Abees. And this

6
00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:29,640
Speaker 1: is a little off the beaten path of hedge fund

7
00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:34,000
Speaker 1: managers and economists and traders, um, but it's no less

8
00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:38,640
Speaker 1: fascinating if you're at all interested in how artwork is

9
00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:42,320
Speaker 1: determined to have a specific valuation, how we can tell

10
00:00:42,440 --> 00:00:45,680
Speaker 1: the provenance and and whether or not something is real

11
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:49,239
Speaker 1: or not, what takes place at auctions, and what the

12
00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:53,760
Speaker 1: future of modern art looks like. I suspect you will

13
00:00:53,800 --> 00:00:57,200
Speaker 1: find this to be a fascinating conversation. I wish I

14
00:00:57,240 --> 00:00:59,080
Speaker 1: had it for another hour because I have hundreds of

15
00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:02,320
Speaker 1: more questions I just didn't get to. But with no

16
00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:12,080
Speaker 1: further ado, my conversation with Sothobes brook Lampley. My special

17
00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:16,479
Speaker 1: guest today is Brooke Lampley. She is the incoming vice

18
00:01:16,520 --> 00:01:19,240
Speaker 1: chairman of the Fine Art Department at Sothoby is a

19
00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:24,080
Speaker 1: job she will begin in early her undergraduate at Harvard

20
00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:27,039
Speaker 1: and her master's at Yale were in art history. She

21
00:01:27,160 --> 00:01:30,919
Speaker 1: did curetorial work at the National Gallery of Art before

22
00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:34,360
Speaker 1: joining Christie's in two thousand and four, where she quickly

23
00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:37,600
Speaker 1: became a rising star in the art market, getting named

24
00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:41,880
Speaker 1: to Crane's forty under forty list. Eventually, she rose to

25
00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:45,360
Speaker 1: the position of head of the Impressionist and Modern Art

26
00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:49,440
Speaker 1: department at Christie's, where she oversaw the sale of more

27
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:54,280
Speaker 1: than a billion dollars in Impressionist and modern art. Brook Lampley,

28
00:01:54,320 --> 00:01:57,840
Speaker 1: Welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you. So now is as good

29
00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:01,000
Speaker 1: a time as any to talk about what's going on

30
00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:03,160
Speaker 1: in the art world. But I have to back up

31
00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:05,800
Speaker 1: a little bit and get a little bit of background

32
00:02:05,880 --> 00:02:11,000
Speaker 1: about you, um undergraduate at Harvard, your studying art history.

33
00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:14,600
Speaker 1: Did you have any idea you wanted to pursue a

34
00:02:14,639 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 1: career selling art? Annoyingly? I did know for a long

35
00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,040
Speaker 1: time that I was interested in art. I was quite

36
00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:27,040
Speaker 1: a bookish, kind of nerdy kid um and I came

37
00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:30,520
Speaker 1: from an artistic family. My mother was a painter, my

38
00:02:30,600 --> 00:02:33,160
Speaker 1: aunts and architect. To my other aunt works in fashion.

39
00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:39,440
Speaker 1: I didn't have any um, more conventional career models. I

40
00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:41,880
Speaker 1: didn't have a lawyer or a doctor or a banker

41
00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:45,919
Speaker 1: in my family. So when I discovered art history, it

42
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:51,640
Speaker 1: was the perfect fusion of my kind of academic um

43
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:58,760
Speaker 1: inclination with an artistic interest. And I loved it. UM.

44
00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:02,360
Speaker 1: I loved it in high school. UM. I went to

45
00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:07,720
Speaker 1: college and I actually I did a joint concentration or

46
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:11,919
Speaker 1: major in literature and history of art because I didn't

47
00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:15,520
Speaker 1: want to solely focus on history of art, because UM,

48
00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:17,920
Speaker 1: I highly suspected that that was something that I was

49
00:03:17,919 --> 00:03:21,520
Speaker 1: going to focus on in my life. So I enjoyed

50
00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:25,120
Speaker 1: taking a lot of comparative literature classes as well as

51
00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:28,520
Speaker 1: history of art classes. And I was pretty certain at

52
00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:30,440
Speaker 1: the end that I was going to apply to art

53
00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:33,520
Speaker 1: history graduate school. So how do you go from art

54
00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:38,920
Speaker 1: history to the big auction houses. That's an unusual transition.

55
00:03:39,240 --> 00:03:42,880
Speaker 1: It wasn't intentional. I started out. I really believed that

56
00:03:42,920 --> 00:03:46,760
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a curator. I was very academic

57
00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:49,680
Speaker 1: and my interest I was reading Art Forum every week,

58
00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:55,720
Speaker 1: reading like really theoretical, um out there stuff about art,

59
00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:57,640
Speaker 1: and that's what I was really interested in. I was

60
00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:01,280
Speaker 1: really interested in critical theory. UM. I thought that I

61
00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:05,360
Speaker 1: was going to spend my life writing UM. Quite esoteric

62
00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:12,640
Speaker 1: observations on art that a very narrow audience might read. UM.

63
00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:16,280
Speaker 1: But I went to graduate school really young UH, and

64
00:04:16,360 --> 00:04:19,240
Speaker 1: I discovered there that I was young and I didn't

65
00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:23,520
Speaker 1: have UM a lot of professional experience inform the career

66
00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:25,920
Speaker 1: path that I was choosing. UM, and I started to

67
00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:27,839
Speaker 1: get some cold feet about the fact that I was

68
00:04:27,839 --> 00:04:31,200
Speaker 1: going to be there for potentially five years accomplishing my

69
00:04:31,279 --> 00:04:37,480
Speaker 1: PhD before then having a real work experience. So I

70
00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:39,279
Speaker 1: took a leave of absence to go work at the

71
00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:42,479
Speaker 1: National Gallery UH in a curatorial department. I was working

72
00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:44,840
Speaker 1: in the department of Photographs UH, and I did that

73
00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:48,520
Speaker 1: to confirm that I wanted to be a curator, and

74
00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:52,680
Speaker 1: for better or for worse, it didn't work out that way. UM.

75
00:04:52,720 --> 00:04:56,159
Speaker 1: It's quite It's a wonderful institution, and the department I

76
00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:59,120
Speaker 1: was in was doing incredible work. At the time. UM

77
00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:03,440
Speaker 1: Sarah Greeno had just made it an independent department, moved

78
00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:06,720
Speaker 1: it out of the administration of the Prince Department. They

79
00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:11,120
Speaker 1: were having their they had recently endowed independent galleries within

80
00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:15,480
Speaker 1: the museum, so they were having their first full UM

81
00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:20,680
Speaker 1: schedule of exhibition programming. So UM three temporary exhibitions. In

82
00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:24,800
Speaker 1: the year that I was there, it was full on,

83
00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:29,880
Speaker 1: but it was also highly administrative UM. And I also

84
00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:33,359
Speaker 1: it was the first time that I realized that museum

85
00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:39,520
Speaker 1: work wasn't as free of commercial interest as I had

86
00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:43,560
Speaker 1: been given to think. So I felt that when I

87
00:05:43,600 --> 00:05:48,400
Speaker 1: was in Academia UM there was a very ivory tower

88
00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:53,440
Speaker 1: sort of division between UM, the academics and the museum

89
00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:57,920
Speaker 1: world and the commercial art world. And I was reflectively

90
00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:01,760
Speaker 1: very disdainful of the commercial art world. And so in

91
00:06:01,839 --> 00:06:05,000
Speaker 1: order to get away from all of that commerciality in

92
00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:08,360
Speaker 1: the museums, you end up at Christie's. How how did

93
00:06:08,400 --> 00:06:10,920
Speaker 1: that happen? I decided to throw it open. I just decided,

94
00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:12,520
Speaker 1: you know, it was time to see what the commercial

95
00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:15,400
Speaker 1: art world was all about. And I was attracted to

96
00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:18,920
Speaker 1: the auction houses, particularly because UM it gives a more

97
00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:21,920
Speaker 1: macro cosmic view of the market as opposed to going

98
00:06:21,960 --> 00:06:24,239
Speaker 1: to a gallery where you might focus on a few

99
00:06:24,400 --> 00:06:29,080
Speaker 1: artists in great depth. And but I looked at I

100
00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:31,240
Speaker 1: was just applying to jobs generally at that point I

101
00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:33,080
Speaker 1: wanted to move to New York and have a different

102
00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:37,160
Speaker 1: job experience. So at Christie's you discover you have a

103
00:06:37,240 --> 00:06:42,359
Speaker 1: talent for helping to identify and sell art. Tell us

104
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:45,560
Speaker 1: about that a little bit. Well, Christie's, I really discovered

105
00:06:45,640 --> 00:06:47,920
Speaker 1: that I loved business as much as I loved art,

106
00:06:48,440 --> 00:06:52,120
Speaker 1: and that I loved the fast pace. I loved the

107
00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:57,279
Speaker 1: competitive nature. UM, I loved the active discovery. UM. What

108
00:06:57,400 --> 00:06:59,480
Speaker 1: you get at the auction houses that you don't get

109
00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:04,560
Speaker 1: anywhere else is old fashioned connoisseurship. You're really seeing so

110
00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:08,880
Speaker 1: much material by an artist. UM. In my prior experience,

111
00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:12,520
Speaker 1: at you know, my academic and museum experience, you were

112
00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,760
Speaker 1: only looking at masterpieces and you never had any context

113
00:07:15,880 --> 00:07:19,280
Speaker 1: for why something was a masterpiece because you weren't seeing

114
00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:23,000
Speaker 1: the drudgery. You weren't seeing run wire sketches. You weren't

115
00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:29,080
Speaker 1: seeing his smaller paintings or vignettes that were then cut down.

116
00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:33,600
Speaker 1: You didn't really have the full scope. UM. Suddenly at Christie's,

117
00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:35,760
Speaker 1: I had the full scope. I got to see so

118
00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:39,160
Speaker 1: much more, and it was really invigorating. I felt like

119
00:07:39,320 --> 00:07:42,160
Speaker 1: I trained my eye and that was something that I

120
00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:47,520
Speaker 1: hadn't truly done before. UM. It was a much deeper

121
00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:53,520
Speaker 1: experience with the art, and UM it was thrilling to

122
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:58,640
Speaker 1: be working with people directly. UM. And talking to them

123
00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:01,920
Speaker 1: about about art all along in a variety of capacity.

124
00:08:01,960 --> 00:08:04,720
Speaker 1: Is whether I'm talking to a seller or a potential buyer,

125
00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:10,360
Speaker 1: or appraising someone's collection. I just talk to people about art.

126
00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:15,040
Speaker 1: You said something previously that I have to ask you about.

127
00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:19,680
Speaker 1: You said you learn to train your eye when looking

128
00:08:19,720 --> 00:08:22,720
Speaker 1: at an appraising art. Explain that a little bit by

129
00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:30,760
Speaker 1: looking over years at many many examples of artworks by

130
00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:33,840
Speaker 1: particular artists. So I have a field that I focus on,

131
00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:37,640
Speaker 1: and that's primarily European art from the latter half of

132
00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:40,120
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century in the first half of the twentieth century.

133
00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:43,480
Speaker 1: That's my favorite grouping. So it's hard not to be

134
00:08:43,520 --> 00:08:47,880
Speaker 1: a favorite. It's mine too, um. But by looking at

135
00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:50,360
Speaker 1: so many examples by these artists over and over again,

136
00:08:50,520 --> 00:08:58,120
Speaker 1: you really get a an instinctual sense of authenticity. That's

137
00:08:58,120 --> 00:09:02,839
Speaker 1: what connoisseurship is. It's the It's what Malcolm Gladwell is

138
00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:06,120
Speaker 1: talking about in Blink. It's looking at something and having

139
00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:11,360
Speaker 1: a gut feeling. And you only get that by looking

140
00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:16,720
Speaker 1: at a great range and multitude of examples by a

141
00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:19,839
Speaker 1: particular artist. Ten thousand hours and hundreds and hundreds and

142
00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:24,600
Speaker 1: hundreds of paintings later, when you first see something, is

143
00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:26,800
Speaker 1: it immediate? I know you By the way, we'll get

144
00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:29,679
Speaker 1: to this in our appraisal discussion, the tools of what

145
00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:33,560
Speaker 1: you use. And it's not just instinct, but after a

146
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:36,760
Speaker 1: certain period of time, is it instantly you could look

147
00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:40,439
Speaker 1: at something and say that's good, that's not good, that's authentic,

148
00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:45,480
Speaker 1: that's not How fast do you make that decision after

149
00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:52,000
Speaker 1: a decade of practice, Oh, it's instant. There of course

150
00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:59,520
Speaker 1: exceptions um or you know, particularly excellent forgeries, or things

151
00:09:59,559 --> 00:10:04,640
Speaker 1: that are troubling or juvenile lea by an artist that

152
00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:08,440
Speaker 1: may not look exactly like what you expect from the artist,

153
00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:12,480
Speaker 1: But by and large it's it's immediate. And then there

154
00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:16,480
Speaker 1: are two wavelengths. It's not just the authenticity wavelength. Then

155
00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:22,600
Speaker 1: there's also the um commercial appeal instinct that also becomes

156
00:10:22,640 --> 00:10:28,280
Speaker 1: a reflexive reaction. So so explain that every artist obviously subjective.

157
00:10:28,679 --> 00:10:31,360
Speaker 1: I like this, I don't like that, I love this artist,

158
00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:35,920
Speaker 1: I can't stand that artist. But what is the is

159
00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:40,280
Speaker 1: the commercial appeal subjective? Or obviously we get auction numbers,

160
00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:43,640
Speaker 1: so we know what the most recent price transaction was,

161
00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:48,560
Speaker 1: but how subjective is the evaluation of what's the commercial

162
00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:53,640
Speaker 1: appeal of this particular painting. It's highly subjective, and in

163
00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:59,080
Speaker 1: as an expert we learn to dissect and quantify that

164
00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:03,440
Speaker 1: subjectivity to the degree possible. But it's also why, at

165
00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:07,440
Speaker 1: least at the auction houses, we work in teams um

166
00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:12,120
Speaker 1: and try to utilize a diversity of opinion to come

167
00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:15,520
Speaker 1: to a conclusion about something. But generally, yes, I'm looking

168
00:11:15,559 --> 00:11:20,280
Speaker 1: at something and I'm saying, Wow, this is sensual and

169
00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:24,240
Speaker 1: romantic and has an incredibly luscious surface. And I'm looking

170
00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:28,120
Speaker 1: at example B, which is a very similar picture. Um,

171
00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:30,920
Speaker 1: but it's not the same because the color is just

172
00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:35,360
Speaker 1: not quite as rich and the surface is not quite

173
00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:39,680
Speaker 1: as thickly painted, and that makes an enormous difference in price.

174
00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:42,880
Speaker 1: So I read a statistic the other day that that

175
00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:46,800
Speaker 1: really shocked me. A recent poll noted that about six

176
00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:52,000
Speaker 1: of wealthy U s art owners claim they've never sold

177
00:11:52,040 --> 00:11:56,760
Speaker 1: a piece from their collection, and about have never even

178
00:11:56,840 --> 00:12:02,120
Speaker 1: had their holdings appraised. How consistent is that with your experiences?

179
00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:08,560
Speaker 1: That's somewhat unsurprising to me, in the sense that in

180
00:12:08,640 --> 00:12:11,240
Speaker 1: my experience, there are many people who are very comfortable

181
00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:14,480
Speaker 1: with the appraisal process, and there are some who are

182
00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:18,040
Speaker 1: just skittish about it, who don't like the idea that

183
00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:22,160
Speaker 1: somebody is going to know what they have UM and

184
00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:26,960
Speaker 1: I understand that. I don't think that. You know, we're

185
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:30,560
Speaker 1: in a world where people are concerned about privacy and

186
00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:34,000
Speaker 1: the private security I would image and their data, and

187
00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:38,520
Speaker 1: I think that's changing UM and people are becoming more

188
00:12:38,600 --> 00:12:44,360
Speaker 1: accustomed to UM needing to share information in order to

189
00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:49,880
Speaker 1: receive insurance and services. But primarily people get appraisals for

190
00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:55,199
Speaker 1: insurance provider and that's the primary reason UM or if

191
00:12:55,240 --> 00:12:58,720
Speaker 1: they're receiving a loan, for example. UM And then in

192
00:12:58,800 --> 00:13:03,440
Speaker 1: terms of selling, yes, many people collect art over their

193
00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:07,160
Speaker 1: lifetime with no intention of selling it, either until they

194
00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:10,840
Speaker 1: pass or their children determined that it will be sold,

195
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:14,320
Speaker 1: or until they gift it somewhere, So that can be

196
00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:17,600
Speaker 1: that can be quite common. That certainly used to be

197
00:13:18,320 --> 00:13:20,800
Speaker 1: I think, much more common than it is today. So

198
00:13:20,920 --> 00:13:23,560
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about one of those collections that it

199
00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:26,840
Speaker 1: appears where there hasn't been a sale over a long

200
00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:31,040
Speaker 1: long time, the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller. Some

201
00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:34,240
Speaker 1: people have estimated this is three quarters of a billion

202
00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:37,679
Speaker 1: dollars or numbers close to that um and have called

203
00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:41,120
Speaker 1: the upcoming sale of this the sale of the century.

204
00:13:41,160 --> 00:13:44,960
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this Rockefeller collection and what

205
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:50,200
Speaker 1: do they actually have? They have some stunning works, specifically

206
00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:53,199
Speaker 1: from the period that I focus on. UM, there are

207
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:56,959
Speaker 1: going to be wonderful Monaise. There's an there's a sensuous

208
00:13:57,160 --> 00:14:02,560
Speaker 1: Matisse Odalisk painting from the nineteen twenties that perhaps will

209
00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:06,200
Speaker 1: reset the market for that artist. And when you say

210
00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:10,560
Speaker 1: reset the market, Matisse is considered one of the grand

211
00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:13,880
Speaker 1: masters of that era. I mean, how much further can

212
00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:18,960
Speaker 1: Matisses be reset upwards? Or am I underestimating that he

213
00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:23,000
Speaker 1: is widely recognized as one of the most important artists

214
00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:26,800
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. But the market is driven by

215
00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:31,280
Speaker 1: the examples that come to market, and that differs for

216
00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:34,080
Speaker 1: every artist. So for example, for Picasso, there have been

217
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:38,520
Speaker 1: great Picasso's, truly great Picassos that have sold publicly at

218
00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:43,200
Speaker 1: auction in private hands, yes, And as opposed to Matiste,

219
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:46,280
Speaker 1: where a lot of work is in museums or hasn't

220
00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:50,720
Speaker 1: been sold for whatever reason. So there haven't been equally

221
00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:54,080
Speaker 1: great examples by Matisse in my view, that have come

222
00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:57,840
Speaker 1: to market in the last ten years, and every decade

223
00:14:57,880 --> 00:15:02,320
Speaker 1: the market is changing. So you set a record. For example,

224
00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:04,800
Speaker 1: you know, a van Gogh that's sold in the eighties

225
00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:08,280
Speaker 1: would sell for a completely different number today, and that

226
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:11,320
Speaker 1: would in a fact reset the artist market. So it's

227
00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:15,040
Speaker 1: not just about completely fresh works, it's about the timing

228
00:15:15,040 --> 00:15:17,480
Speaker 1: of those works arriving on the market. Thirty years is

229
00:15:17,520 --> 00:15:19,520
Speaker 1: a long time. There's been a lot of appreciation in

230
00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:23,280
Speaker 1: the stock market, that's been inflation. One would imagine that

231
00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:26,120
Speaker 1: these are selling for more. But when you say reset,

232
00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:30,000
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, hey, this is more than just eight percent

233
00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:33,800
Speaker 1: a year um, a little above inflation. This is a

234
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:36,200
Speaker 1: whole order of magnitude change. Is that? Is that what

235
00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:39,520
Speaker 1: you're suggesting about the Matisse for example, Absolutely, I think

236
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:43,160
Speaker 1: it could double the existing record the artist. So we

237
00:15:43,240 --> 00:15:47,480
Speaker 1: started talking about appraisals and you said earlier you get

238
00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:50,680
Speaker 1: a sense of our work of art in a millisecond,

239
00:15:50,720 --> 00:15:54,960
Speaker 1: and that's just a function of many, many years looking

240
00:15:54,960 --> 00:15:59,080
Speaker 1: at thousands of different paintings. But you don't just rely

241
00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:02,720
Speaker 1: on instant tell us a little bit about the tools

242
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:06,560
Speaker 1: of the trade, and I recall you saying flashlight, camera,

243
00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:10,240
Speaker 1: tape measure and UV light. What what can a UV

244
00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:13,720
Speaker 1: light tell you, Um, outside of c S I, what's

245
00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:15,960
Speaker 1: what can I tell you about a painting? A UV

246
00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:24,280
Speaker 1: light typically reveals later stage painting, so that could in

247
00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:29,440
Speaker 1: some instances even be the artist's own reworking of their

248
00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:34,040
Speaker 1: painting later on, which is still important to recognize. But

249
00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:38,680
Speaker 1: generally speaking, it is a restoration to the painting, and

250
00:16:39,440 --> 00:16:43,640
Speaker 1: people are of course very interested to understand to what

251
00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:48,320
Speaker 1: degree the original artists work is preserved in the painting

252
00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:52,560
Speaker 1: that they're looking at, or another hand has helped restore

253
00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:55,280
Speaker 1: the image to what we believe it should be, and

254
00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:58,960
Speaker 1: that would affect not so much the authenticity of the painting,

255
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:02,400
Speaker 1: but the final valuation is that is that a fair statement?

256
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:06,000
Speaker 1: There's a range, but generally yes, it just refers to

257
00:17:06,040 --> 00:17:09,840
Speaker 1: the condition of the work. So it is a factor

258
00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:14,960
Speaker 1: on the value of the work, but not generally the authenticity.

259
00:17:15,040 --> 00:17:19,400
Speaker 1: Though of course, if a work has been broadly repainted

260
00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:22,560
Speaker 1: and there is very little evidence of the original hand,

261
00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:26,840
Speaker 1: then um, one would argue that that's an authenticity issue.

262
00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:30,160
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk about authenticity a little bit. You

263
00:17:30,160 --> 00:17:35,920
Speaker 1: you've discussed and we'll discuss provenance. You've referenced. Attribution is essential,

264
00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:40,040
Speaker 1: so for a lot of paintings, we could literally trace

265
00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:43,000
Speaker 1: from the artist painting it to the sale, and that

266
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:46,920
Speaker 1: chain of custody goes down right to today. What happens

267
00:17:46,960 --> 00:17:49,879
Speaker 1: when you are confronted with what you think is a

268
00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:54,920
Speaker 1: unauthentic original, but that providence is missing, that that custody

269
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:58,040
Speaker 1: chain is missing, and there could be decades where it

270
00:17:58,119 --> 00:18:00,679
Speaker 1: was privately held and nobody knows. So I have a

271
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:03,160
Speaker 1: great example for this, actually, and it was one of

272
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:08,119
Speaker 1: the most fun things that I've worked on in my career.

273
00:18:08,359 --> 00:18:12,560
Speaker 1: I given that I went to Harvard, I was contacted

274
00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:15,480
Speaker 1: by a Cambridge local a few years ago, I think

275
00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:19,280
Speaker 1: this was two thousand seven, and they had a painting

276
00:18:19,320 --> 00:18:21,879
Speaker 1: that they invited me to come see, and it was

277
00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:26,760
Speaker 1: a Lege still life from the nine twenties UM. It

278
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:32,720
Speaker 1: was fifty inches high, It was radiantly beautiful, and it

279
00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:37,480
Speaker 1: clearly to me was consistent with the work by the

280
00:18:37,560 --> 00:18:42,400
Speaker 1: artist that I had seen from this period. This would

281
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:46,800
Speaker 1: be an unusual painting in some senses to copy, not

282
00:18:46,880 --> 00:18:51,120
Speaker 1: because forgeries of Lege are unusual, because they're actually very common,

283
00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 1: but because of the scale of the work UM, and

284
00:18:55,600 --> 00:19:01,320
Speaker 1: how beautifully painted it is, and how reductive the style

285
00:19:01,480 --> 00:19:06,920
Speaker 1: is it's particularly difficult to forge minimalist paintings very well.

286
00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:11,679
Speaker 1: So I looked at it, and then I learned something

287
00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:14,800
Speaker 1: even more important that the person who I was speaking

288
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:21,879
Speaker 1: to was a family descendant, direct descendant of the previous

289
00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:27,480
Speaker 1: UM Guggenheim director and MoMA curator, James Johnson Sweeney. So

290
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,159
Speaker 1: they have no provenance, They had no bill of sale

291
00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:36,440
Speaker 1: for the work, and they had There is no authenticating

292
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:41,240
Speaker 1: body for the artists Lege, so the only resources that

293
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:46,720
Speaker 1: we have in the market are the catalog resume and provenance,

294
00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:50,000
Speaker 1: and this work was not in the catalog resume, and

295
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:55,200
Speaker 1: one had to believe that this work would have been

296
00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:59,040
Speaker 1: given or sold directly by the artist to the curator,

297
00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:02,280
Speaker 1: James Johnson Sweene. And that's why it was not featured

298
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:06,840
Speaker 1: in the book and also why it was you know,

299
00:20:06,920 --> 00:20:10,160
Speaker 1: this had to be a proven implausible history. But one

300
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:15,639
Speaker 1: thing that was missing was Lege typically titled, numbered, and

301
00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:19,640
Speaker 1: dated his works on the reverse of the canvas, and

302
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,040
Speaker 1: there was a backing on this painting, and that could

303
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:26,080
Speaker 1: not be seen. And my team and I basically came

304
00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:31,280
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that as long as this had the

305
00:20:31,359 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 1: inscriptions on the reverse, that it would ring true, but

306
00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:37,879
Speaker 1: if it didn't have the inscriptions on the reverse, it

307
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:41,480
Speaker 1: was implausible. And we brought it to New York and

308
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:44,160
Speaker 1: we reverse. We took the backing off the painting, and

309
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 1: they're beautifully perfectly as we wanted to believe it would be.

310
00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 1: Was exactly the style of signature and inscription and titling

311
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:57,639
Speaker 1: on the reverse that we have come to expect from

312
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:01,120
Speaker 1: Lege in this period, and we were able to solve

313
00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:03,760
Speaker 1: the work. It was estimated at I believe three to

314
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:07,960
Speaker 1: five million dollars and sold for eight million, and it

315
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:12,400
Speaker 1: was stunning success. That's fantastic. So I'm a car guy

316
00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:18,200
Speaker 1: and we call um the occasional find garage finds where

317
00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:22,200
Speaker 1: there's some old Porsche Ferrari that's gathered us for thirty years.

318
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:26,639
Speaker 1: Literally the sun went off to Vietnam, didn't come back,

319
00:21:27,080 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 1: the parents couldn't sell the car. It's worth many times

320
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:32,400
Speaker 1: more than what was paid. Many years ago, not too

321
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:36,280
Speaker 1: long ago, I read about a garage find somewhere in

322
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:40,560
Speaker 1: the Midwest of a Jackson Pollock. Someone had called somebody

323
00:21:40,720 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 1: in to authenticate like a three hundred dollar um sports

324
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 1: piece of memorabilia, and in the pile in the garage

325
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:52,639
Speaker 1: at the bottom is this Jackson Pollock. At this point

326
00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:56,359
Speaker 1: in the world, with the Internet and everything else, how

327
00:21:56,400 --> 00:22:00,320
Speaker 1: realistic is it that great works of art are buried

328
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 1: in people's addicts or garages or what have you. It's

329
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,639
Speaker 1: still uncommon, as much as we'd all like to believe

330
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 1: it will happen to us. But what needs to be

331
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 1: understood is that we now live in the information age.

332
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:17,680
Speaker 1: So we assume that there is a clear archive of

333
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:22,080
Speaker 1: historical data associated with every artwork that is available to us,

334
00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:24,760
Speaker 1: and it's just not true. Yes, if you're buying a

335
00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:28,000
Speaker 1: contemporary artwork, that should be able to easily be traced

336
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,800
Speaker 1: back to the dealer and the artist. And if you

337
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: can't do that, well, then um, you should be out

338
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 1: of luck, because that should be so easy, that information

339
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: chain should be unbroken. But for as recently as the

340
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:48,359
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, the information chain is definitely broken for

341
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,440
Speaker 1: so many artists. There are so many artists for whom

342
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:56,200
Speaker 1: we have incomplete archives, or the dealers didn't preserve um

343
00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:00,119
Speaker 1: their journals and their invoices well enough for us have

344
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 1: a complete picture of sales, and so for the dealers

345
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:07,760
Speaker 1: who did do that in the early twentieth century, it's

346
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 1: a huge boon to the market. Or for example, the

347
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:18,160
Speaker 1: fact that Picassoum was quite logical and UM he codified

348
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:20,560
Speaker 1: a lot of his work, He numbered and dated almost everything.

349
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 1: He also cooperated in UH the publication of a fairly

350
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: thorough book, a catalog resume of his very extensive production.

351
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: These these are huge market tools. I remember when sixty

352
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:41,239
Speaker 1: Minutes had Picasso on and in the back of his

353
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: property is a barn literally filled with hundreds of his work.

354
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:50,040
Speaker 1: I don't remember which UM correspondent was interviewing him, it

355
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: might have been Leslie Stall and she says, aren't you concerned?

356
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:56,400
Speaker 1: You have thousands of these works worth millions of dollars,

357
00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: anyone could steal them? That they're invaluable, and his aunt

358
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: it was not until I signed them, and I always

359
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: was very much amused by that. But how realistic is

360
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 1: that someone steals a Picasso from his garage that's unsigned?

361
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:16,120
Speaker 1: Is there any value there? There are unsigned works UM,

362
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 1: and for every artist, actually there are works that generally

363
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: remained in the studio and we're unsigned, unfinished, unsigned, or unloved.

364
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:32,120
Speaker 1: That's that's also for a subjective there is an opinion

365
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:36,640
Speaker 1: to that whether unsigned and unfinished are the same, and

366
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: whether that is that is different for every artist. It's unstable.

367
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:45,879
Speaker 1: It's not a direct equation. But um, there is value.

368
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:50,360
Speaker 1: There's definitely value. It's just like anything. It's a factor

369
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: on the value, and so everything is an exponent on

370
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 1: the artwork itself. Makes sense. Let's tell a little bit

371
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: about some of the auctions and things that are going

372
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:07,160
Speaker 1: on in the world of art today. And we would

373
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:11,679
Speaker 1: be remiss if we did not discuss that giant da

374
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:16,360
Speaker 1: Vinci sale a few weeks ago. Tell us about that.

375
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:21,159
Speaker 1: Does four fifty million dollars make any sense for a

376
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 1: da Vinci work that, let's be honest, not his best

377
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:30,480
Speaker 1: day in the studio. Here's how it makes sense. The market,

378
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 1: the art market is definitively shaped right now by individuals

379
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 1: who are aligned with institutions or creating institutions. The fusion

380
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 1: of the institution and the individual is hugely powerful at

381
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: the top end of the market. So the way I

382
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:58,439
Speaker 1: see it, there could be no greater attraction for the

383
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:02,880
Speaker 1: louver of Abu Dhabi. There is no greater single object

384
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: that they could add to their collection to make that

385
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: institution makes sense, especially in its pendant relationship to the

386
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: Louver in Paris than a painting by da Vinci. There

387
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: are what twenty or less examples? There are fewer than

388
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 1: twenty paintings that exist in the world, all of them

389
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: in museums, and all of them just utter masterpieces. Is that?

390
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: Is that a fair statement? Or am I overstating it?

391
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: I I wouldn't personally attest that they're all utter masterpieces

392
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: because I haven't seen every single one of them. What

393
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 1: are you doing? You travel so much, shouldn't you do

394
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: like a da Vinci world tour? That I would think

395
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,159
Speaker 1: that I could actually quit my job and do a

396
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: da Vinci world tour. Probably that should be the time

397
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,400
Speaker 1: job between college and grad school. That's a in the

398
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:59,640
Speaker 1: hierarchy of works by da Vinci from the Last Supper,

399
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: And I'm not a Mona Lisa fan, so that I

400
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: don't put that at the top of the heap. It's

401
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: kind of small, and there's a weird history of it

402
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: being stolen, which is what made it so famous. But

403
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: where does this current piece rank? And is it four

404
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 1: d and fifty million dollars because it's a da Vinci

405
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:20,959
Speaker 1: and any da Vinci would have gone for that for

406
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 1: this museum or there is. Is there an inherent value

407
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: that I'm completely missing. No, it's a notional value based

408
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 1: on it being a da Vinci. It has almost nothing

409
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: to do with the object itself. I really don't believe

410
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: that the people who are pursuing this object cared deeply

411
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: about how it looked or the condition of the work.

412
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: Um I. And that's that's fine, that's their right. But

413
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: the the value of this object is founded almost entirely

414
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 1: in the fact that there is no other da Vinci

415
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:58,400
Speaker 1: painting that you can ever acquire, none of these other

416
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: sixteen or seventeen or coming up for sale. And there's

417
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: such a premium in the market in the world for

418
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: paintings over works on paper. If you could ever have something,

419
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 1: it would be perhaps a pencil drawing, and and he

420
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: did lots and lots of drawings, and people want paintings

421
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: so much more. That makes sense. So let's talk about

422
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: some of your favorite paintings. We mentioned the legare uh

423
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: that that you sold. Let's talk about La Femme Dajare

424
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: by Picasso, which is I think lovely work that went

425
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: for lots and lots of money. Tell us about that

426
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: that was a stunning painting. It is a work that

427
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: had previously been an auction in the Gan sale, so

428
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: it was interesting that it was not the first time

429
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:51,959
Speaker 1: that it was ever appearing on the market. And what

430
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 1: did it sell for, because I want to tee up

431
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: the surprise ending three million dollars alright, so not an

432
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: insubstantial amount of money, but twenty years less than twenty

433
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: years later it went for how much eighty million dollars.

434
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money, and that's a lot of appreciation.

435
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: What changed in the not even twenty years to make

436
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: that rise sixfold? First of all, there's just general inflation,

437
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: because if you just do the math on the over

438
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: that time, it would have multiplied significantly. But it's also

439
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: the power of the painting is staggering. This is a work.

440
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: This is unlike the painting we were previously talking about.

441
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: This is a seminal painting. This is a fully realized, complex,

442
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: multi figure, rich abstraction. It is balancing um. It is

443
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: walking the fine line and Picasso's work between abstraction and

444
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: figuration perfectly. It's incredibly colorful, dense. It just really shows

445
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: off both his is pain early prowess and his tight

446
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: draftsmanship because it is a very architecturally designed, fractured painting.

447
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,719
Speaker 1: So it's just it's Picasso. It's the epitome of Picasso.

448
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: And what you have in those intervening years is you

449
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: no longer have a largely Western driven market for great

450
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: Western art. You have a global market for great Western art.

451
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: You have people from every part of the world competing

452
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: for the best Picaso. So that's Asia, especially China, South American,

453
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: Brazil and of course the Middle East. Let's talk about

454
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: another Picasso. I my French is not as good as

455
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: it should be. Um, but Painter and Model is another UM.

456
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: His English translation is another work that that you I

457
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: believe helped bring to auction, and I am I correct

458
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: in that recollection. They are the only thing about that

459
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: is the Painter and Model was a very popular series

460
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: or a series that Picasso pursued for a period in

461
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: the sixties. So there are a number of them. So

462
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: how many of those did you help sell? I've worked

463
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 1: on I've probably sold ten Painter and Model. Really, there's

464
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: that many of them, alright, So we mentioned Picasso Legier,

465
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: let's talk about the grain Stack by Monet, which everybody

466
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: is seen there. They're fairly seminole um it's the Not

467
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: Dame series and the grain Stack series. Tell us about that.

468
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: What was that sale like? That was a real highlight

469
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: for me. I had seen that painting for many years.

470
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 1: He's done a few of those, a number of studies

471
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: and various versions, but there hadn't been one on the

472
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: market for fifteen years. And in that time, in that

473
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: intervening fifteen years, there had been a huge surge in

474
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 1: prices for water lily paintings, and that had essentially moved

475
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: the market. The modern market or the contemporary market from

476
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: Mona is all about the profundity and abstraction of the

477
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: serial pictures, whereas the market for Mona twenty years ago

478
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:22,479
Speaker 1: was all about the classicism and clarity and beauty of

479
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies Impressionist pictures. So the market for money

480
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: has completely changed over twenty thirty years. And during this

481
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: course of time, we have a fifteen year gap between

482
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: the last Haystack coming to market and this one. So

483
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,239
Speaker 1: we knew that there was an opportunity here, Um, we

484
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: did not know exactly what the market tolerance or on

485
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: the benchmark price would be for a haystack. And and

486
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: tell us how that transaction worked out? So I believe

487
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 1: the bidding opened at around fifty or fifty five million dollars.

488
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: The work ultimately sold for eighty million dollars. I was

489
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: on the phone with the direct underbidder and it was

490
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: a fight. It was a real duel till the end,

491
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: and they were very disappointed because it was a staggeringly

492
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: beautiful picture that not only really bridges this important period

493
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: of art Impressionism, but also can be situated perfectly in

494
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: a contemporary or modern collection. So let's talk about a

495
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: few others that you've brought to market. Modigliani, Van Go

496
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: Jacom Eddie tell us about an example of each and

497
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 1: ps I don't mean to downgrade these artists in any way.

498
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 1: We could talk about any of the billions of dollars

499
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: of artwork you helped sell, but for time's sake, I

500
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: just want to reference these three together. Well there, Madigliani

501
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: is remains one of the most fascinating artists to bring

502
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: to market today because of the profound scarcity of his production.

503
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: He died young, um and really at his at the

504
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 1: peak of his artistic power, so you'll never know his

505
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:20,479
Speaker 1: His biography really fits into the mythology that people much

506
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: like Van go as well. Um like to associate with

507
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: great artists and the tortured soul who dies young? Is that?

508
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: Is that what we're yes? And you never perhaps got

509
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: to see their fully realized greatness. We can only imagine

510
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: how much we got to see Picasso live a full

511
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: life and see what he how his art changed decade

512
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: over a decade. And there's a great fascination in that.

513
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 1: But there is an equally great fascination in the curtailed genius,

514
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: in the genius that never came perhaps to complete fruition.

515
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:58,839
Speaker 1: Where would his art have gone? And with Madigliani, you

516
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: have beautiful, full portraits, stately portraits. We've sold arrange, we've

517
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 1: sold great male portraits, and that exceeded our expectations because

518
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: the market is so impoverished of Medigliani, and that people

519
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 1: are truly thrilled or excited by any examples that come

520
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: up and really will chase them. It's another scarcity issue.

521
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 1: There's only so many of them, and if you want one,

522
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 1: you're going to pay up that. And then of course

523
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 1: we sold in my time at Christie's the Marquis Medigliani,

524
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: the best Mendigliani you're ever going to get a reclining

525
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: female nude and what did that go for? A hundred

526
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 1: and seventy three million? Not not too shabby. We have

527
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,399
Speaker 1: been speaking with Brook Lampley. She is the former head

528
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 1: of Modern Art and Impressionists at Christie's, soon to be

529
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,839
Speaker 1: the vice chair of Fine Arts at South Abs. If

530
00:35:56,840 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation, be sure and stick around for

531
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 1: the podcast extras, where we keep the tape rolling and

532
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:08,240
Speaker 1: continue discussing all things aren't related. We love your comments, feedback,

533
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: end suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at

534
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. You can check out my daily column

535
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg dot com or follow me on Twitter at

536
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 1: rich Halts. I'm Barry Rich Haults. You're listening to Masters

537
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 1: and Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast, Brook,

538
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this. I am fascinated

539
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 1: by the topic and really want to delve into so

540
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: many more questions. And I don't know whether to pick

541
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: up with the Jacob Addie Vango and Brank Quc or

542
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: let's let's let's talk about the question I would imagine

543
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: is on a lot of people's minds is how investable

544
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: is art? Because everything we've been talking about has been.

545
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 1: Forget da Vinci, what do we say there was seventeen

546
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 1: sixteen paintings? When when? And then even if you go

547
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,760
Speaker 1: to as prolific as Picasso and to a lesser degree,

548
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:23,879
Speaker 1: money have been, there's still only a finite number of

549
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: those works. And when we look at the modern worlds,

550
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: and I don't mean modern painting, I mean twenty eighteen

551
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: painting from artists that are working today and selling their works,

552
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: how investable are those works? Is it the sort of

553
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: thing that we're gonna a century from now those are

554
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: gonna be the next hundred million dollar paintings, or has

555
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 1: the golden age of art production kind of come to

556
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: an end and everything going forward is something different. It's

557
00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:00,279
Speaker 1: a funny thing, you know, Hindsight is always so. I

558
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 1: think we look back at our view of the art

559
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: market of eras past, and the works that we're still

560
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: selling today is defined by a selection process that's already happened,

561
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: and today we're faced with how we make that selection

562
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 1: process in real time. Surely a great number of the

563
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 1: artists working today will be valuable in the future. But

564
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 1: if I had a crystal ball to know exactly who

565
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: those would be and who they wouldn't be then I would,

566
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: you know, I would quit what I'm doing and just

567
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: do that full time. Well, you still need the capital

568
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: to go out and spend even even at five and

569
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars a painting. So I'm doing that to

570
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:57,880
Speaker 1: some degree myself. I'm interested in that, but I really

571
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:02,280
Speaker 1: believe I can't help but be wooed in the stories

572
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 1: and the people I've met by the people who collected

573
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: with their hearts just for the love of it, with

574
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: a passion, and that passion stood the test of time.

575
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: I think time and again you hear and see that

576
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: people who really cared about what they were looking at

577
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: and collected with a view to that level of quality.

578
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: Um that the market rewarded them, because at the end

579
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 1: of the day, that's what we all care about, and

580
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 1: that's also what drives the market, is the quality. So

581
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 1: how much how much of that is the luck of

582
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 1: the era? And let me rephrase that. So we mentioned

583
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 1: earlier the Rockefeller collection from from David Rockefeller, that here's

584
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 1: a person who inherits his fortune in the mid twentieth century,

585
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: so he's got the preview is hundred years of works

586
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 1: that we now know are worth hundreds of millions of dollars,

587
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars um. But he's buying what

588
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: he and his wife like. He's buying what's available. He's buying, um,

589
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 1: what is actually up for sale, and a hundred years later,

590
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: fifty years later, it's it's an enormous collection. If we

591
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,240
Speaker 1: were to do the exact same thing today, somebody inherits

592
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: a few billion dollars and they start buying what they

593
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: like over the next fifty years, what are the odds

594
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: that what they pick up over the next few decades

595
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 1: are going to appreciate the way uh, the Impressionists, the

596
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 1: early modernist Because when we look at the arc of

597
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 1: history of painting, we're now in a totally different sort

598
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: of zone than what's developed over the past previous few centuries.

599
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:52,800
Speaker 1: But I think we still need to recognize that even

600
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 1: when the Rockefellers were acquiring so it's interesting, it was

601
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: a mix of his story, oracle and contemporary art. I

602
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: think those prescient Picasso and Matisse choices that people made

603
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:15,720
Speaker 1: when these people were still actively producing works, um were

604
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: incredibly wise and wonderful selections, but they were pretty much

605
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: they were already established artists they were. This is like

606
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:31,319
Speaker 1: buying a Richard Sarah. Okay, this isn't buying um you know,

607
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: an artist down in Chelsea who is having their first

608
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 1: gallery show. This is buying a very well regarded Jeff Coon's,

609
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 1: someone who is has already been shown in museums and

610
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: already has a commercial following and established collecting base. So

611
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: I believe what the Rockefellers did. And there are many

612
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: other examples, though not to the same degree. Us. Yes,

613
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: that will prove valuable time and again. If you were

614
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 1: able to go out today and buy career, mid career

615
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 1: examples by already established artists, and you saw that in

616
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: fifty years. I do believe in that value. There's I

617
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: there's no question in my mind. But I think the

618
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: greater question is how you buy truly contemporary art and

619
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 1: how how do you And for that I think, um,

620
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: the people who have been most successful are people who

621
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 1: had some kind of governing philosophy or um metric. So

622
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 1: whether that be I'm buying German photography from the nineteen eighties,

623
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 1: I'm buying women artists of earlier historical periods. I'm buying

624
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: um great Cuban art from the nineteen fifties, whatever it

625
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: may be. UM, the people who really dedicate themselves to

626
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: some sort of theme and they buy the virtue of

627
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: collecting in that theme are already they are working in

628
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: tandem with their collection. They're enhancing the value because they

629
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: are creating a story, a narrative. They're creating the category

630
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: essentially for people to follow. So how does one determine

631
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:37,879
Speaker 1: this is a tricky question. So whether you're looking at

632
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:42,840
Speaker 1: contemporary art that's being painted today or finding a niche

633
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: such as nineteen fifties Cuban or nineteen twenties UM German photography,

634
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: how do you determine what is a realistic valuation when

635
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:58,399
Speaker 1: you're making a purchase, because there really isn't a whole

636
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 1: lot in the way of comparables. You're kind of figuring

637
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 1: out some number, but it seems to be I don't

638
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: want to say random, but really subjective and in a

639
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: tremendously broad potential range, if that makes any sense. Oh,

640
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: it's incredibly difficult, and this is why people love auction.

641
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 1: Auction and the secondary market provides the security of um

642
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: comparables of a market history and some parameters for pricing

643
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: that are based on historical data. But when you go

644
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: to a gallery, there is no data, there is no context.

645
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: It's just what they're pricing it at, and you have

646
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:44,760
Speaker 1: to make an evaluation that is really subjective about whether

647
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:47,439
Speaker 1: you think something is worth that value. Now, of course

648
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: you're welcome to ask the dealer, and you should um

649
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: what the pricing history has been for the artist, what

650
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: you know previous shows they've had. UM, if they can

651
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: give examples of other sales, that can bolster the information

652
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: that you have UM. But that market is essentially untested

653
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: until someone tries to re sell their work. So a

654
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: challenge the auction houses face very often is people artists

655
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: used to contact me all the time wanting to sell

656
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 1: their works directly through the auction house, and I'd say,

657
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this is a bit of a chicken and

658
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: an egg, but you we don't really sell anything that

659
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,239
Speaker 1: hasn't already been sold. We need there to be a

660
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 1: track record that's the floor at the very least. So

661
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the auction process. I

662
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 1: was surprised to read that a lot of these lots

663
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 1: go off in a matter of seconds or barely minutes,

664
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 1: because when we see something like that Da Vinci it

665
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: was seven or eight minutes of bidding and it got

666
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: frenetic and crazy. What is the typical auction process, like,

667
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: how do you determine how what the starting prices and

668
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: how long do the actual bidding process take. It's a

669
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: great question because it's hugely variable. So watching the Da

670
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 1: Vinci sale, I think it was actually fifteen minutes of

671
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: bidding and that's a really long time in the auction room.

672
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure what the record is, but it

673
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: may be up there. For a single lot, every lot

674
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 1: is the auctioneer has a tremendous amount of discretion going

675
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: into an auction, which is a live auction, which its

676
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: state you know, for the purpose of this conversation, live auctions,

677
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: the auctioneer will sit down and look at something called

678
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,879
Speaker 1: the auctioneer's book before the auction and think about where

679
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: they would like to start the bidding on each lot,

680
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 1: based not just on where the reserve prices, because most

681
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: lots offered at you know, Christie's or Sabbs, say, have reserves,

682
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 1: which meaning if it doesn't at that price, it doesn't

683
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: get sold. It's the confidential minimum below which the work

684
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 1: will not be sold. But in addition to the reserve.

685
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: The other information that they may be considering is how

686
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:59,040
Speaker 1: many phone bidders have signed up to been on the lot,

687
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: how many internetters are registered for that lot. If somebody's

688
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: left an absentee bid, So, if you have a lot

689
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: of competition on the lot, you would probably start higher

690
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: and closer to the reserve. Then if you have nobody,

691
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:18,839
Speaker 1: you might start further away from the reserve and chandelier

692
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: bid more give yourself more room. What does that mean?

693
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 1: Chandelier bid So the auctioneer in New York State can

694
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:29,320
Speaker 1: leally bid on behalf of the auction house, so essentially

695
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: fake bid up until the reserve, so that if someone

696
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:37,320
Speaker 1: comes in and bids ten tho dollars but the reserve

697
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 1: is eighteen thousand, the auctioneer will bid against them in

698
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 1: an effort to entice them to bid up to eighteen.

699
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: If it doesn't hit reserve, it doesn't get sold. So

700
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: it's a harmless process and it perhaps moves a sale.

701
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: And it also protects the confidentiality of the reserve because

702
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,280
Speaker 1: what is less effective is to just say, okay, seventeen thousand,

703
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 1: does anyone want to bid eighteen and everybody is just

704
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:05,920
Speaker 1: waiting and looking at each other to see if anyone

705
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:09,840
Speaker 1: will bid. That would discourage people from bidding, because they

706
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: would wait and let the work not sell and then

707
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 1: try to make a cheaper off after what is and

708
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 1: does that happen? If something doesn't go for reserve, there's

709
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:21,359
Speaker 1: the option. So again my frame of references automobiles, it's

710
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 1: the same thing. The auctioneer says reserve has met or

711
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: the auctioneer says says reserve is withdrawn. This is a

712
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:31,439
Speaker 1: car that's going to sell and lo and behold. Very

713
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 1: often that runs the price up. What is the bidding

714
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: process like, um in terms of increments? What is it

715
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,520
Speaker 1: like beyond the reserve? Once we know that a sale

716
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: is taking place. So the increments are fairly standardized, and

717
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: they go in fives or ones, between one and two, twos,

718
00:48:54,280 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 1: between two and three, zero to five, eight, ten, between

719
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: three and five and then five above that, between five

720
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: and ten um in all iterations, UM in hundreds and

721
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 1: thousands and hundreds of thousands. But um the bidder can

722
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 1: always request a smaller increment. They can always try to

723
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: break the bid and then break the bid. Meaning is

724
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: that what we saw with the da Vinci going up

725
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 1: in three million dollar lots when they could have gone

726
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: up in one or two million dollar lots. Well, with

727
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:36,000
Speaker 1: the da Vinci was particularly unusual and very interesting. UM.

728
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: But yes, essentially, the bidder can determine their own bid

729
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:41,879
Speaker 1: at the auctioneer's discretion, and then the auctioneer might try

730
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 1: to control um. The bid increment is their greatest control

731
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 1: over the momentum of the auction. So the only reason

732
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:54,880
Speaker 1: they don't want the bid increment to break down is

733
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: because they want UM. There's no reason if you have

734
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 1: multiple bidders to work in very small into increments UM.

735
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: But with the da Vinci, it was fascinating because the

736
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: direct underbidder was always bidding two million dollars and the

737
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 1: next bid, the eventual buyer, bid eight million dollars each time,

738
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: and then eventually made like a thirty million dollar bid.

739
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 1: So they were kind of saying, dude, give it up,

740
00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 1: I'm taking this home and you can't here. They were

741
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 1: communicating through their bid, and yet the underbidder continued to

742
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: come along, thinking, so is that a little bit of poker?

743
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: They're there, Hey, this guy is bluffing at eight million

744
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 1: of pop. I'm going to stay in. I thought it

745
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,799
Speaker 1: was their own demonstration of determination. I thought it was

746
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: really interesting. I thought the direct underbidder was even more

747
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 1: interesting than the um the buyer, because of their resilience

748
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:52,240
Speaker 1: and saying you won't move me. I was a little

749
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:55,800
Speaker 1: um depleted that they didn't win that battle at the

750
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 1: end because and we don't know who the underbidder was.

751
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:00,480
Speaker 1: No one stepped forward and said you that was mad.

752
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 1: No nobody has identified, so I guess at this time

753
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: I can reveal I'm just kidding. So that that's kind

754
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 1: of fascinating. It sounds like there is this very specific

755
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 1: set of rules and a very specific um dynamic to

756
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:22,239
Speaker 1: the bidding process. How does somebody who is you know,

757
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: there's a lot of I hate the word newfaux reach,

758
00:51:24,719 --> 00:51:27,279
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of new money. Let's say you're

759
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 1: a bitcoin millionaire and you want to go buy some

760
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: art because bitcoin can be lost, but the art at

761
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:38,879
Speaker 1: least you can ensure it. How does someone learn on

762
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:41,760
Speaker 1: some of these ten and twenty million dollars or more paintings?

763
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 1: How do you learn how to engage and behave at

764
00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: an auction? You talk to me, is that what I'm

765
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:52,920
Speaker 1: here for? So, so, if you're working for the auction house,

766
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:57,360
Speaker 1: who you know obviously is incentivized to maximize the price

767
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 1: on behalf of the seller. How do you sist the

768
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 1: buyer you're with a house, the real estate agent is

769
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:07,919
Speaker 1: usually the seller's agent. Unless you go out and get

770
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: a buyer's agent, you're fighting, you know, fighting um or

771
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 1: negotiating with someone who isn't working on your behalf. If

772
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 1: you're at the auction house and I say, hey, I

773
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 1: really have a thing um for BRINCUSI and I want

774
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: Brooke to help me, uh find one, how does that

775
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:29,800
Speaker 1: work with you and the auction house? If the auction

776
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 1: house is representing the seller, it is tricky that we

777
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: work on both sides. Um. My response that would be

778
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 1: that the market is repetitive and cyclical, relationships are long.

779
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:44,280
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in a short term relationship with a client.

780
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:47,800
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in over selling them on one object

781
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 1: to the detriment of what our long term relationship would be.

782
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:56,439
Speaker 1: Because I have so much art to sell um more

783
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: than four times a year. I have so much art

784
00:52:58,640 --> 00:53:01,399
Speaker 1: to sell all the time, and we have so much

785
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: on offer. The market is so voluminous, UM, so transaction

786
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: heavy right now that it's really in my interests to

787
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 1: help someone find the right thing and have them be happy.

788
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: Also because in my line of work, I work, as

789
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 1: you mentioned, with both buyers and sellers, so every perspective,

790
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:29,680
Speaker 1: buyer is a future seller. So I want them to

791
00:53:29,719 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: be happy with their purchase because if they're going to

792
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:34,719
Speaker 1: sell it someday, I want them to come back and

793
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 1: talk to me. Um. But the other answer would be

794
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 1: that there are lots of independent advisors in the art

795
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:47,440
Speaker 1: world who are full time, who are consultants, who UM

796
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 1: would love to make themselves available to people to advise

797
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 1: them on transactions. And you know how to work with

798
00:53:56,040 --> 00:54:00,480
Speaker 1: an auction house. Um. The only thing is, as with

799
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:03,680
Speaker 1: any industry you know, there, they take a commission and

800
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: I take no commission. So you're working for the house

801
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 1: and the house is taking their pound of flesh. But

802
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: your your job is to just make everybody happy and

803
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:17,279
Speaker 1: look look for repeat business related to the auction. I

804
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:19,400
Speaker 1: have a couple of other questions I don't want to forget.

805
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:24,000
Speaker 1: So something doesn't get sold and it doesn't meet the

806
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:26,799
Speaker 1: reserve or whatever, and it isn't sold then and there

807
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 1: you're suggesting, Hey, these auction houses eventually become giant galleries

808
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:34,920
Speaker 1: with warehouses full of stuff to be sold. Even if

809
00:54:34,960 --> 00:54:36,959
Speaker 1: it's not being sold at auction, it may be sold

810
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:39,880
Speaker 1: at some other non auction date. What do I have

811
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 1: that right? So everything that happens after the auction is

812
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:47,920
Speaker 1: variable and at the seller's discretion. The first thing that

813
00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: happens is, um, we will generally accept offers after sale,

814
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:56,160
Speaker 1: offers for things that didn't sell, not not like the

815
00:54:56,239 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 1: day after. You're talking weeks or even months immediately after. Okay,

816
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:03,360
Speaker 1: maybe in the hours after you really three days to

817
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 1: five days maybe after the auction. So but once a

818
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 1: week goes by, that's it. It's done. It's probably it's

819
00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:12,080
Speaker 1: probably too late. So I miss I miss purchasing something

820
00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:15,439
Speaker 1: at the last auction. But I'm you know, it's been

821
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 1: on my mind for a few months, and I call

822
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: up Brooke and say, hey, remember that monet that didn't sell? Um,

823
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 1: I'm interested in pursuing that. How How what can we do?

824
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:28,920
Speaker 1: Can can you reach out to the seller? Do things

825
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: like that happens all the time, really, and there is

826
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: no limitation. I definitely can, and I will when it's appropriate,

827
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 1: And then the auction house gets paid their normal pan

828
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 1: of flesh. Anyway, if they facilitate the transaction, it would

829
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 1: be then classified as a private sale. We do non

830
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:52,680
Speaker 1: auction transactions as well. What's the balance typically is how

831
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 1: much is auction and how much is non auction. I'm

832
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 1: kind of curious about Well, it's changing all the time.

833
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: I think the last statistics UM for Christie's in um,

834
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:14,839
Speaker 1: we're we're non auction, but I could I'm not sure

835
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 1: if I'm utterly correct about that. That sounds about Bullpark, right,

836
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:23,200
Speaker 1: but it's it's a growing sector of the business and

837
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 1: there's because really, um, what everybody is realizing is that

838
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:37,319
Speaker 1: while we all know the gross auction revenues of the

839
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:42,960
Speaker 1: auction houses year on year, and there fluctuates, say between

840
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: Christie's and Southeby's together, in the last ten years it's

841
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:50,040
Speaker 1: been anywhere from ten to fifteen billion a year. But

842
00:56:50,080 --> 00:56:53,720
Speaker 1: then there's a whole another potentially forty five billion dollars

843
00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:58,520
Speaker 1: worth of art being sold every year that is outside

844
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:02,359
Speaker 1: of that, there's a lot more market to capture. Are

845
00:57:02,440 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: you familiar with artsy So? Rich Barton is the person

846
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: behind Expedia and Zillo and glass Door, and this new

847
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:14,600
Speaker 1: site he's developed he's co founded is below everything we

848
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:18,520
Speaker 1: see it at auction is a huge market of art

849
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: that doesn't really have a way to be tracked and transacted.

850
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:28,880
Speaker 1: Is that potentially the next larger wave of art sales?

851
00:57:30,600 --> 00:57:35,440
Speaker 1: I think digital is I'm going to transform the art world. Transformed.

852
00:57:35,600 --> 00:57:38,240
Speaker 1: That's that's a big word. I don't think it's necessarily

853
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:42,880
Speaker 1: outside of the auction houses. I think, um, it's already happening.

854
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 1: There are increasingly digital auctions taking place or sales online

855
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:54,080
Speaker 1: at both Christie's and Southebys, as well as other auction houses,

856
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: as well as other online platforms. And yes, what I've

857
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: seen is that there is a remarkable appetite to buy

858
00:58:03,160 --> 00:58:06,120
Speaker 1: things online at much greater price points than I think

859
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:10,240
Speaker 1: people would fathom. Um, and we should know because I

860
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 1: buy everything else in my life online. So Um, clearly

861
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:18,800
Speaker 1: we're all getting much more comfortable with buying online and

862
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:23,280
Speaker 1: that is now extending significantly into the luxury space. That

863
00:58:23,600 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 1: makes sense. Amazon is now twenty years old. So when

864
00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:31,560
Speaker 1: we talked earlier about about providence and fraud, I read

865
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:36,280
Speaker 1: a crazy statistics somewhere had said that art theft and

866
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 1: fraud and they didn't break it out is six billion

867
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:43,320
Speaker 1: dollars a year is that is that number remotely plausible?

868
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 1: That seems like an insane Wow, that's that is significant.

869
00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:53,240
Speaker 1: That's shocking to me. I wouldn't know. I am fortunate

870
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:59,120
Speaker 1: that we're not really directly involved. We do see people

871
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 1: bring us four juries, but we don't because we try

872
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 1: to avoid them and refuse them and not price them. Um,

873
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 1: we're not really quantifying that space as unthinkable as it is. Hypothetically,

874
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:21,800
Speaker 1: a non original slips through and gets auctioned off and

875
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 1: then subsequently, as we've discovered recently with a handful of

876
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 1: not auction houses but galleries, people have sold hundreds of

877
00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 1: millions of dollars worth of stuff that's that's forgeries. Does

878
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:36,760
Speaker 1: the auction house stand behind the prominence of what they

879
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: sell or is it simply they're facilitating a transaction and

880
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:44,640
Speaker 1: not making any sort of guarantee. Now there's a warranty.

881
00:59:44,680 --> 00:59:48,680
Speaker 1: There's a five year warranty, and UM, I believe that's

882
00:59:48,760 --> 00:59:51,680
Speaker 1: standard in the industry, which is that this is if

883
00:59:51,720 --> 00:59:54,640
Speaker 1: this is sold as a picasso, it's a picasso. The

884
00:59:54,680 --> 00:59:59,280
Speaker 1: warranty is specifically on the attribution of the work. It's

885
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:03,840
Speaker 1: u pretty much, UM, not about anything else. It's not

886
01:00:03,880 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 1: about the condition. It's not about um other specifics. I mean,

887
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:11,320
Speaker 1: surely if we said the work was fifty one by

888
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:13,600
Speaker 1: thirty inches and it turned out to be you know,

889
01:00:13,640 --> 01:00:16,680
Speaker 1: two by three inches, UM, that would be included. But

890
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:22,000
Speaker 1: if nobody cares it's it is by the artist as

891
01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:24,760
Speaker 1: as it's either by the artists or not, that's the issue.

892
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:28,080
Speaker 1: And it's a five year warranty. But beyond that, UM,

893
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 1: there's significant reputational hazard. You know, they would be a

894
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 1: serious issue for either auction house. And has any of

895
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 1: these come up in the past twenty years where something

896
01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:42,360
Speaker 1: was sold discovered to be not who it was supposed

897
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:46,360
Speaker 1: to be by and the auction house made good. Absolutely.

898
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:51,360
Speaker 1: It happens UM and generally and hopefully not usually at

899
01:00:51,400 --> 01:00:55,959
Speaker 1: the um you know da Vinci and Picasso fumtall jaire level.

900
01:00:56,160 --> 01:01:00,640
Speaker 1: But it happens UM when there are changes in scholarship

901
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:04,640
Speaker 1: or what we call in the industry expertise UM. There

902
01:01:04,680 --> 01:01:08,680
Speaker 1: are authenticating bodies for a lot of these artists, particularly

903
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:11,920
Speaker 1: in the in my field an Impressionist and modern art

904
01:01:12,480 --> 01:01:16,440
Speaker 1: UM in France the Duat morale Um. It is a

905
01:01:16,560 --> 01:01:20,400
Speaker 1: legal right authentication on behalf of one of these artists

906
01:01:20,680 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 1: is illegally appointed or given right in France. So, um,

907
01:01:26,800 --> 01:01:33,480
Speaker 1: when these when this changes hands, when different scholars take

908
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: over and perhaps change the view that was given ten

909
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,240
Speaker 1: years ago. Um, that can be an issue that is

910
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 1: brought back to an auction house. And I keep coming

911
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:49,160
Speaker 1: back to Jackson Pollock. I recall an issue with I

912
01:01:49,240 --> 01:01:52,520
Speaker 1: remember a girlfriend or a mistress. It was a painting

913
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:55,800
Speaker 1: that was supposedly gifted to her or then was it

914
01:01:55,840 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 1: by her? And is this a fifty painting or a

915
01:01:59,360 --> 01:02:02,520
Speaker 1: fifty million dollar painting? How do these sorts of things

916
01:02:02,560 --> 01:02:07,560
Speaker 1: get resolved or do they remain unresolved? And hey, you

917
01:02:07,560 --> 01:02:11,800
Speaker 1: want to take a chance for fiftys maybe you're getting nothing,

918
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:15,520
Speaker 1: maybe you're getting a ten million dollar Pollock? Is it

919
01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:20,160
Speaker 1: that open ended? So all roads lead back to Da Vinci.

920
01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:23,000
Speaker 1: The Da Vinci is a great example. The Da Vinci

921
01:02:23,120 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 1: is a painting that in two thousand five I believe,

922
01:02:26,560 --> 01:02:32,240
Speaker 1: was purchased at a very small regional auction house and

923
01:02:33,200 --> 01:02:38,880
Speaker 1: after extensive research was re attributed to Da Vinci. It

924
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:41,400
Speaker 1: was not attributed to Da Vinci at that time when

925
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:45,120
Speaker 1: it was purchased for I think ten thousand dollars. So

926
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:47,880
Speaker 1: what is most incredible in the story of this Da

927
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:51,040
Speaker 1: Vinci is that a work of this importance by such

928
01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:55,520
Speaker 1: a famous artist would have been so recently rediscovered and

929
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 1: reattributed to the artist. And the way that that happened

930
01:02:58,160 --> 01:03:02,080
Speaker 1: was that there was an important an exhibition at the

931
01:03:02,160 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 1: National Gallery of Art in London in I want to

932
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:10,080
Speaker 1: say UM. But in addition to scholarship that was done

933
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:14,480
Speaker 1: by the purchaser and just generally in the field UM.

934
01:03:14,680 --> 01:03:17,760
Speaker 1: Through this exhibition, a consensus was able to be established

935
01:03:17,800 --> 01:03:21,600
Speaker 1: among leading scholars in the field UM and communicated to

936
01:03:21,640 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: the world at large through this exhibition that this is

937
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:27,520
Speaker 1: now known as a Da Vinci Um. That's essential. It's

938
01:03:28,440 --> 01:03:32,200
Speaker 1: that's where the commercial and the academic world's really converge.

939
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 1: We do not rely on ourselves as a soul arbiter,

940
01:03:38,120 --> 01:03:42,000
Speaker 1: because clearly we have a commercial incentive to sell. So

941
01:03:42,120 --> 01:03:45,120
Speaker 1: we look to academics and we look to a scholarly

942
01:03:45,160 --> 01:03:49,880
Speaker 1: community to make these attributions. How often does do we

943
01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:53,920
Speaker 1: see a major change in attribution like that where something

944
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:57,880
Speaker 1: literally goes for ten thousand dollars to half a billion dollars.

945
01:03:57,880 --> 01:04:01,200
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a forget the price. How often do

946
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:04,720
Speaker 1: we discover a Da Vinci that we previously didn't think

947
01:04:05,040 --> 01:04:07,040
Speaker 1: was a DaVinci. And I don't mean just with that artist,

948
01:04:07,120 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 1: I mean any major artist from Picasso, Amoni to Rothcot

949
01:04:12,120 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 1: or whatever. Hardly Ever, what is much more common rather

950
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:19,720
Speaker 1: than adding works into the cannon, is that there are

951
01:04:20,120 --> 01:04:23,480
Speaker 1: works that are excluded from the canon that could potentially

952
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:27,200
Speaker 1: be real. So you have any number of people who

953
01:04:27,200 --> 01:04:32,000
Speaker 1: own medigliani is today um coming around clamoring saying I

954
01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:36,240
Speaker 1: have all of this information, this is a real Medigliani UM.

955
01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:39,360
Speaker 1: And you have a bunch of experts in the art

956
01:04:39,400 --> 01:04:43,880
Speaker 1: world or commercial experts saying I'm really sorry, I can't

957
01:04:43,880 --> 01:04:48,520
Speaker 1: help you because there is no universally recognized expert in

958
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:51,200
Speaker 1: the field for Medigliani right now. There are some people

959
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,160
Speaker 1: competing for that um kind of status in position, and

960
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:56,960
Speaker 1: hopefully perhaps one day we will have someone who we

961
01:04:57,000 --> 01:04:59,200
Speaker 1: all recognize, But right now there are a lot of

962
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:03,320
Speaker 1: people who own Igliani's who can't be helped. Those could

963
01:05:03,360 --> 01:05:06,720
Speaker 1: be good value purchases, because they're not or could be

964
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:08,720
Speaker 1: a waste of money unless you really like it. Let

965
01:05:08,760 --> 01:05:11,560
Speaker 1: me get to some of my favorite questions. Tell us

966
01:05:11,560 --> 01:05:15,280
Speaker 1: the most important thing people don't know about your background.

967
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:17,600
Speaker 1: I think it's the fact that I grew up in

968
01:05:17,640 --> 01:05:20,880
Speaker 1: London from the time I was twelve until I went

969
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:24,160
Speaker 1: to college. No accent whatsoever. I would never have guessed

970
01:05:24,200 --> 01:05:26,560
Speaker 1: I have no accent. So no Madonna was there for

971
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:29,440
Speaker 1: a weekend, then she ended up with a British accent bingo.

972
01:05:29,760 --> 01:05:31,880
Speaker 1: This is always what I say. So the reason I

973
01:05:31,880 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 1: don't have an accent is because people would show up

974
01:05:34,040 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 1: from like Austin and two days later have an accent

975
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:41,240
Speaker 1: and we'd say, who are you Madonna? That's funny. Tell

976
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 1: tell us about some of your early mentors. I was

977
01:05:44,000 --> 01:05:48,560
Speaker 1: really fortunate, as I mentioned before, to not have a

978
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:52,600
Speaker 1: family where I was expected to follow a conventional career path.

979
01:05:53,800 --> 01:05:56,960
Speaker 1: I would say that my father was an early influence.

980
01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 1: He is a sportscaster. He's had the pre viedge in

981
01:06:00,800 --> 01:06:04,600
Speaker 1: his life to do something that he loves, and he

982
01:06:04,680 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 1: really made me feel that it was possible to do

983
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:10,720
Speaker 1: something that I love as a career. That's a really

984
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 1: interesting history. Tell us about who influenced your approach to

985
01:06:17,280 --> 01:06:21,280
Speaker 1: working in the world of art and and the commercial

986
01:06:21,320 --> 01:06:23,720
Speaker 1: side of it. A lot of people. I've worked with,

987
01:06:24,080 --> 01:06:29,520
Speaker 1: so many great people. I really enjoyed working with Stephen Murphy,

988
01:06:29,640 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 1: the previous or recently previous CEO of Christie's. He was

989
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:43,280
Speaker 1: someone who was a really inspirational leader and created great

990
01:06:43,320 --> 01:06:46,560
Speaker 1: opportunities for me at an important moment in my career.

991
01:06:47,360 --> 01:06:50,400
Speaker 1: What are some of your favorite books, be they fiction, nonfiction,

992
01:06:50,520 --> 01:06:53,280
Speaker 1: about art or anything else? And and by the way,

993
01:06:53,280 --> 01:06:58,600
Speaker 1: this is everybody's favorite question. They listeners wanna learn about

994
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 1: new books or books they may not be familiar with.

995
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:05,320
Speaker 1: Why if I fear my answer won't be surprising enough,

996
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:10,920
Speaker 1: then I am a great lover of fiction, of great novels.

997
01:07:11,640 --> 01:07:17,600
Speaker 1: I am you know the corrections? Um? Great? Like meaty?

998
01:07:17,760 --> 01:07:20,840
Speaker 1: Right now? What am I reading? Uh? I'm reading The Knicks.

999
01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:27,800
Speaker 1: If I could only remember, it's like a first time novelist,

1000
01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:34,280
Speaker 1: I think, Um any favorite art books? There are many

1001
01:07:34,320 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 1: to choose from the Life of Picasso's pretty good, John Richardson,

1002
01:07:40,400 --> 01:07:42,680
Speaker 1: you can't beat the Life of Picasso for being not

1003
01:07:42,800 --> 01:07:48,960
Speaker 1: only informative, but saucy and gossipy and scintillating. Picasso's Life

1004
01:07:49,120 --> 01:07:53,600
Speaker 1: is richly entertaining. And give us one more fiction that

1005
01:07:53,640 --> 01:07:57,360
Speaker 1: you're reading? Oh I have if I could only Oh,

1006
01:07:57,400 --> 01:07:59,840
Speaker 1: I read a Little Life. Who didn't love that book?

1007
01:07:59,840 --> 01:08:04,520
Speaker 1: It's devastating a little life. All right, Let's talk about

1008
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:08,280
Speaker 1: changes in the art market. What is different today than

1009
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 1: twenty years ago? And is this a good thing? So

1010
01:08:13,280 --> 01:08:16,600
Speaker 1: many things. It's so much more global as a marketplace,

1011
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: and that's definitely a good thing. It um it puts.

1012
01:08:23,360 --> 01:08:29,920
Speaker 1: It changes the way that we appreciate art, and we're

1013
01:08:29,960 --> 01:08:40,320
Speaker 1: now seeing our exposing and publicizing great regional works almost

1014
01:08:40,320 --> 01:08:43,760
Speaker 1: to the same degree that we are great examples of

1015
01:08:43,800 --> 01:08:47,439
Speaker 1: the canon. Overall, I think that there was a much

1016
01:08:47,479 --> 01:08:51,320
Speaker 1: more Western perspective in the past. Tell us about a

1017
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:55,520
Speaker 1: time you failed and what you learned from that. I

1018
01:08:55,560 --> 01:09:01,799
Speaker 1: was challenged by working at a museum in my early career,

1019
01:09:02,160 --> 01:09:05,280
Speaker 1: and it was a surprise to me at the time

1020
01:09:06,080 --> 01:09:09,960
Speaker 1: because it wasn't that the work was hard. In fact,

1021
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:12,360
Speaker 1: it was that I wanted to work harder, but there

1022
01:09:12,439 --> 01:09:16,639
Speaker 1: wasn't a place for it there at that moment, and

1023
01:09:18,600 --> 01:09:20,600
Speaker 1: it was I was really limited by the fact that

1024
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:24,639
Speaker 1: I hadn't completed my PhD in terms of what type

1025
01:09:24,640 --> 01:09:28,320
Speaker 1: of work I was engaged to work on. And that

1026
01:09:28,520 --> 01:09:30,760
Speaker 1: was part of what motivated me to work in a

1027
01:09:30,800 --> 01:09:36,360
Speaker 1: more commercial, business minded environment because it felt more meritocratic.

1028
01:09:36,920 --> 01:09:38,760
Speaker 1: I wanted to work hard, and I wanted to work

1029
01:09:38,800 --> 01:09:43,719
Speaker 1: somewhere where that was innately valued. You have a fun job,

1030
01:09:43,880 --> 01:09:47,559
Speaker 1: tell us what you do for fun outside of the office.

1031
01:09:48,000 --> 01:09:51,599
Speaker 1: I have two kids, so that's pretty full time in

1032
01:09:51,960 --> 01:09:55,360
Speaker 1: my non working time. Um, two kids under the age

1033
01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:58,080
Speaker 1: of five, two boys. Um, so I got a lot

1034
01:09:58,120 --> 01:10:01,280
Speaker 1: of exercise just hanging out with them. I also like

1035
01:10:01,520 --> 01:10:05,560
Speaker 1: to spin. What sort of advice would you give somebody

1036
01:10:05,600 --> 01:10:09,120
Speaker 1: who's a millennial or recent college grad if they came

1037
01:10:09,160 --> 01:10:11,840
Speaker 1: to you and said, Hey, I am interested in a

1038
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:15,120
Speaker 1: career in the world of art. So I have a

1039
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:18,639
Speaker 1: conversation a lot. Uh, and I always look forward to

1040
01:10:18,640 --> 01:10:22,960
Speaker 1: it because I try to be more candid than I

1041
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:26,680
Speaker 1: feel either people were with me or actually I think

1042
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:31,640
Speaker 1: I just didn't ask enough. And um, it's usually you

1043
01:10:31,640 --> 01:10:35,080
Speaker 1: know what, This isn't any easier than any other field.

1044
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:39,080
Speaker 1: You have to really love it. There's a scarcity of

1045
01:10:39,120 --> 01:10:43,200
Speaker 1: opportunity here. It's an oversubscribed career path. There are so

1046
01:10:43,280 --> 01:10:46,360
Speaker 1: many people coming out of school with art history degrees.

1047
01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:52,599
Speaker 1: And if you do love it, then take any job

1048
01:10:52,680 --> 01:10:57,840
Speaker 1: that you can get and keep going and it will

1049
01:10:57,880 --> 01:11:01,160
Speaker 1: inform your next step. And our final question, what is

1050
01:11:01,200 --> 01:11:04,000
Speaker 1: it that you know about the world of art today

1051
01:11:04,040 --> 01:11:06,439
Speaker 1: that you wish you knew back in two thousand and

1052
01:11:06,479 --> 01:11:10,920
Speaker 1: four when you were first getting started. That's such an

1053
01:11:10,960 --> 01:11:18,760
Speaker 1: interesting one. I speak Mandarin, Oh really, I I was.

1054
01:11:19,200 --> 01:11:22,439
Speaker 1: I wanted to learn Japanese as a kid, um, and

1055
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:25,040
Speaker 1: because I thought it was an interesting culture, and not

1056
01:11:25,080 --> 01:11:30,120
Speaker 1: because I was so business minded. Um. But there's there

1057
01:11:30,120 --> 01:11:34,680
Speaker 1: are incredible opportunities in the art world right now in

1058
01:11:35,439 --> 01:11:41,000
Speaker 1: regional markets, especially Asia, particularly China. You were in London,

1059
01:11:41,080 --> 01:11:43,880
Speaker 1: did you want to spend more time in Asia? What

1060
01:11:43,880 --> 01:11:46,320
Speaker 1: what would you have done different if you had a

1061
01:11:46,439 --> 01:11:50,680
Speaker 1: perfect other than collecting certain works? What would you have

1062
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:55,400
Speaker 1: changed in your career path had you known how the

1063
01:11:55,439 --> 01:11:58,640
Speaker 1: future would unfauld? No, I think I could do what

1064
01:11:58,720 --> 01:12:02,400
Speaker 1: I do, but also connect. Uh. It's very difficult to

1065
01:12:02,439 --> 01:12:06,840
Speaker 1: connect authentically with collectors um without speaking their language. And

1066
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:09,720
Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense, um, and I respect that. But

1067
01:12:10,120 --> 01:12:13,000
Speaker 1: if I want to really help collectors in any other

1068
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:15,679
Speaker 1: part of the world, UM, I need to speak their language.

1069
01:12:15,760 --> 01:12:20,000
Speaker 1: That's quite interesting. We have been speaking with Brooke Lampley.

1070
01:12:20,120 --> 01:12:24,960
Speaker 1: She is the incoming chair of Fine Arts at Sothabes.

1071
01:12:25,760 --> 01:12:28,559
Speaker 1: Thanks Brooke, thank you so much for doing this. If

1072
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:30,960
Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation, be sure and look up an

1073
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:35,160
Speaker 1: inch or down an inch on Apple iTunes, SoundCloud, overcast

1074
01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:40,280
Speaker 1: uh or Bloomberg dot com wherever finer podcasts are sold,

1075
01:12:40,560 --> 01:12:42,479
Speaker 1: and you could see any of the other hundred and

1076
01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:46,679
Speaker 1: seventy or so such conversations that we've had. We love

1077
01:12:46,760 --> 01:12:51,160
Speaker 1: your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m

1078
01:12:51,200 --> 01:12:55,360
Speaker 1: IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss

1079
01:12:55,439 --> 01:12:57,960
Speaker 1: if I did not thank my Cracks staff who helps

1080
01:12:58,040 --> 01:13:02,599
Speaker 1: us put together this conversation. Asian Taylor Riggs is my booker.

1081
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:08,559
Speaker 1: Producer Medina Partwana is our audio engineer. Michael Batnick is

1082
01:13:08,600 --> 01:13:13,000
Speaker 1: our head of research. I'm Barry Ridholtz. You're listening to

1083
01:13:13,160 --> 01:13:15,719
Speaker 1: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.