The Artworld's Latest Merger: The Symbiosis of Private and Public Sales

17.00 - 18.00, 9 JULY 2020

As the art market increasingly moves into the virtual realm, many businesses have had to come up with new and innovative strategies, pushing boundaries and changing the way collectors interact with art. The Old Masters in particular - a group which prides itself on expert navigation of libraries, rather than of cyberspace - has embraced these changes and is realising it may be for the better. One of the more successful mergers to be born of 2020 is that of the private and public sides of the trade: dealers and auction houses have found themselves joining forces time and again this year in an effort to bolster sales and exposure.
 
Join us on July 9th, at 5 pm BST, as Melanie Gerlis of the Financial Times and Art Newspaper, accompanied by a group of globally esteemed panellists, examines this new trend, its origins and whether or not the Old Masters marketplace as we know it will be forever changed.
 

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Melanie Gerlis

Moderator: Melanie Gerlis, Art Market Columnist, Financial Times & Editor at large, The Art Newspaper

Melanie Gerlis became the art market columnist for the Financial Times in September 2016. She was previously Art Market Editor at The Art Newspaper (2007- 2016), before which she worked in financial communications at Finsbury in London, advising investment banks, hedge funds and other financial services clients (1996-2005). She is a trustee of The Art Academy and Art360 and a member of the governing body for Sotheby's Institute of Art. She has a BA from Cambridge University and an MA from Sotheby's Institute of Art. Her book, 'Art as an Investment?', was published in 2014 (Lund Humphries).

 

 

 

 

Otto Naumann

Otto Naumann, Founder of Otto Naumann Ltd & Consultant, Sotheby's

Otto Naumann began his career as an academic, having received advanced degrees in art history from Columbia University and Yale University. After a few years as a professor at Boston University and the University of Delaware, he started an art dealership in 1982 with John Hoogsteder, entitled "Hoogsteder-Naumann, Ltd." John Hoogsteder began a family company with his son in The Hague, and Otto Naumann founded "Otto Naumann, Ltd." After a modest beginning, the art gallery began selling to American museums and several important private collectors. In 2018 Sotheby's held a "blowout" sale of the gallery's entire wholly-owned inventory, to great success. This was a wonderful experience for both parties, and Otto Naumann has since joined the auction house as a consultant.

 

 

 

Stephen Ongpin

Stephen Ongpin, Founder of Stephen Ongpin Fine Art & Chairman, London Art Week

Stephen Ongpin has over thirty years of experience as an art dealer, specialising in Master drawings, watercolours and oil sketches dating from the 15th through the 20th centuries. He began his career at the famous art dealership of P. & D. Colnaghi in 1986. Working in the firm's drawings department, Stephen was responsible for researching, writing and editing the gallery's annual catalogues of Master Drawings. In 2001 he helped to establish Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd. in London, assuming responsibility for the new firm's drawings department and organizing their successful exhibitions. He has to date researched and written over sixty scholarly catalogues of drawings. Since 2006, Stephen has worked independently as a private dealer, and in December 2007 he opened a gallery in the heart of St. James's in London.

 

 

 

Toby Campbell

Toby Campbell, Director, Rafael Valls Ltd.

Toby Campbell left Edinburgh University having achieved his History of Art Masters degree and went straight to the St. James's Old Master dealer Rafael Valls, where he has been for twenty years. Having completed some work placements throughout university at Rafael Valls, he realised that was the path he wanted to follow, and luckily the gallery wanted him to stay. His speciality lies in 17th Century Europe but changing tastes and working in such an eclectic atmosphere at Valls has broadened his horizons, now regularly buying works in the 19th and early 20th Century from all around the globe.

 

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