I remember sitting in my back office in 2008, staring at a catalog for a mid-career landscape painter, trying to explain to a very confused, very polite collector why the auction house’s figure looked nothing like the artist’s studio price. There is this pervasive, almost sacred myth that how estimates are set is some sort […]
I remember sitting in the back of a crowded auction room in London, watching a woman—a lovely, sharp-witted collector I’d known for years—get caught in the rhythmic, hypnotic trance of the auctioneer’s gavel. She wasn’t bidding on the work; she was bidding against the person sitting three rows ahead of her, driven by a sudden, […]
I remember sitting in the back of a crowded auction room in Gloucestershire, watching a collector’s face go from pure triumph to absolute horror in the span of thirty seconds. He had just won a lovely oil on canvas—12 x 12 inches, 1994—for what he thought was a bargain, only to realize the final invoice […]
People love to talk about auctions as if they are these grand, democratic arenas of pure passion, where the best piece of art simply finds its rightful home through the magic of a raised paddle. It’s a lovely fairy tale, but after twenty-six years in the trade, I can tell you that’s nonsense. In reality, […]
I remember sitting in a dimly lit backroom in London, watching a specialist squint through a microscope at a supposedly “undiscovered” sketch, while the air smelled of stale coffee and expensive anxiety. Everyone in the room was talking about carbon dating and chemical pigment analysis as if they were magic spells, but the truth is […]
I remember sitting in a dim, temperature-controlled archive in London, watching a young, well-meaning scholar fumble through a stack of loose-leaf proofs, trying to justify a six-figure valuation for a canvas that looked suspiciously like a student exercise. People talk about these books as if they are holy relics of truth, but let’s be clear: […]
I remember sitting in the back office of my gallery in 2004, staring at a landscape that looked, for all intents and purposes, like a genuine mid-century master, only to realize the “certificate of authenticity” was nothing more than a beautifully printed lie on high-grade linen paper. The industry loves to pretend that verifying a […]
I remember sitting in a dusty backroom in 1998, staring at a landscape that looked suspiciously like a high-end forgery, while a dealer tried to sell me on the “aura” of the piece. He spoke in riddles about prestige and legacy, but he couldn’t produce a single scrap of paper to prove where the damn […]
I remember a rainy Tuesday in 2004, sitting in the back of my gallery with a painter named Elias who had just watched a collector walk out after haggling him down by forty percent. He sat there, staring at his hands, convinced that being a “good person” meant accepting whatever crumbs the market deigned to […]
I remember sitting in my gallery back in the late nineties, watching a collector hesitate before a beautiful oil on canvas—twelve by twelve inches, 1994—because they were terrified of “doing it wrong” without a white-glove dealer holding their hand. They thought that without a prestigious street address and a polished salesperson, they were somehow participating […]