Cathy's Art Diary

Innovative online talk from Christies which brought together five authors who they had asked to annotate first editions of one of their books to be auctioned in aid of English PEN, the international association of writers. This was a wonderful selection of speakers and I was pleased that I had read three of the books being discussed and am now intrigued to read a fourth. Each author has taken a different approach to the project. David Nichols had annotated “One Day” which I love and said he has partly apologises for bad jokes he had made about people in it, explained where some ideas came from and self-edited. Tracey Chevalier took “Girl with the Pearl Earring”, another favourite, and talked about how there was a spelling mistake on the back of the original dust sheet which has made it a collectors item. She said she had not reread it since it came out so found it an interesting experience. She had pasted 25 paintings in the book which she had annotated. Sarah Water looked at ...

Probing online interviews from ARTNews with the CEOs of Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Manion Maneker, president and editorial director of Art Media, was an excellent interviewer and asked some awkward and interesting questions firstly to Charles Stewart of Sotheby’s then Guillaume Cerulti of Christie’s. Both talked about the challenges of the last year and Covid-19 but also about how they saw the future of auction houses. Interestingly they took slightly different viewpoints with Stewart felling the move to online had brough big changes that wouldn’t got away such as a move away from the rigidly timed main sales. However Cerulti felt that these would return as normality returned and that there was a real desire for people to get back together in this way. He emphasised the social aspects of sales and the importance of what you might overhear when you are there and the buzz in the room. Maneker also asked about the role of luxury goods in their businesses as well as the growing import...