No Reserve: Lives in the Art Market

My guest is Margaret Barrett, whose career has taken her through some of the world’s leading auction houses, including Christie’s New York, Bonhams Los Angeles, Heritage Auctions and Julien’s Auctions. For more than 30 years she has been at the centre of the business of cultural memory, handling the objects, estates and collections that shape how we remember the icons of film, music and popular cu...

In this episode, Charlotte Stewart sits down with Gil Vazquez, former Executive Director of the Keith Haring Foundation, for a conversation that begins not in an institution, but in a T-shirt shop on Astor Place in 1988, where a 17-year-old from uptown New York first stepped into the orbit of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. What follows is not a retrospective, nor an...

Most people know Philip Hoffman as the financier who brought discipline to the art world. He helped shift Christie’s market share from 38% to 52%, cut millions in costs, and later founded The Fine Art Group, now recognised as one of the world’s leading art advisory businesses. He pioneered art lending before it became fashionable and built institutional investment structures around an industry tha...

In this episode, Charlotte Stewart sits down with Sarah Briggs, International Head of Strategic Marketing at Phillips Auction House, for a conversation that begins exactly where Sarah’s career began, in the V&A café, back inside the building where she once sat behind a till asking visitors for a voluntary £3 donation. What follows is not a polished success story, but something far rarer in the...