AUCTIONEERS

Thomas Agnew & Sons

In 1817 Thomas Agnew was made a partner in a general dealing business that was based in Manchester. Its activities included buying and selling paintings. Through Agnew's influence the firm became increasingly focussed upon works of art. In 1860 Thomas Agnew & Sons opened its London premises on Waterloo Place.

William Agnew, through the professional advice he proffered, was responsible for shaping many of the great private collections that were amassed during the late 19^thC.

In 1876 Agnew's commissioned its Old Bond Street premises, the first purpose-built dealers gallery in London.

In February and March each year Agnew's holds its Annual Exhibition of English Watercolours and Drawings.

Agnews admitted its first non-family director in the 1970s.

In 2009 a non-Agnew chief executive was appointed.

Location: 8 Grafton Street, W1S 4EL (blue, purple)

43 Old Bond Street, W1S 4QT. (Former premises) (purple, orange)

Website: www.agnewsgallery.com

Bloomsbury Auctions

In the early 1980s an economic downturn prompted Sotheby's to reduce the size of its book operation. Frank Hermann, who had already left the business, was of the view that there was scope for auctioning books that had a value of less than 1000, since the principal auction houses were not interested in them. He and two colleagues - Lord John Kerr and David Stagg - founded Bloomsbury Book Auctions in 1983. The business opened in premises on Bedford Square home. In 2004 it moved to premises in Maddox Street in Mayfair.

The business was acquired by Dreweatts in 2017.

Location: 16-17 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5LU (purple, pink)

Website: www.dreweatts.com/departments/bloomsbury-auctions-books-and-manuscripts

Christies

In 1766 James Christie, a former midshipman, established a general auction house. By the early 1800s the business had become fashionable for its art sales.

Location: 8 King Street, SW1Y 6QT (purple, grey)

79-85 Old Brompton Road, SW7 3LD (red, orange)

Website: www.christies.com

Lyon & Turnbull

The auctioneering firm of Lyon & Turnbull was founded in Edinburgh by John Lyon in 1826.

Location: 22 Connaught Street, W2 2AF (purple, blue)

Website: https://www.lyonandturnbull.com

Price-Fixing

In 1992, at an event that was taking place at the Royal Academy of Arts, Sir Anthony Tennant, the chairman-designate of Christie s, approach Taubman and suggested that the two auction houses should consider co-operating with one another. A series of meetings ensued. It would seem that neither man sought to collude with the other. However, their respective chief executives Christopher Davidge and Diana Dede Brooks did conspire to fix prices. Some 130,000 clients were to be affected.

In 2000 a price-fixing scandal erupted. Taubman was fined U.S.$7.5m and served a ten-month-long prison sentence in the United States.

Location: Burlington House, 50 Piccadilly, W1J 0BD (orange, brown)

Sotheby's

Samuel Baker held his first auction in 1745; it was of books. He entered the first rank of contemporary auction houses when he sold the library of the art patron and physician Dr Richard Mead. For many years the business was focussed upon the book trade. The firm handled the sales of the libraries of Napoleon and Talleyrand.

The individual who shaped the modern rivalry between Sotheby's and Christie's was Sir Anderson Montague-Barlow. Until his arrival as a partner in Sotheby s, the two auction houses had kept off one another's territory. In 1917 Sotheby s moved to Bond Street. Thereafter, it began to challenge Christie's for fine art sales.

In 1968 Sotheby's bought the book auctioneer Hodgson's Rooms, which had been founded in 1807. The business was relocated to the Aeolian Hall in Bond Street. Three years later Sotheby's Belgravia was opened. There, Peter Nahum played a leading role in fostering the developing market for Victorian art.

In 1983 the American shopping mall developer Alfred Taubman (1924-2015) led a group that paid 83m for Sotheby s.

In 1987 the controversial Australian businessman Alan Bond (1838-2015) paid 35.4m for Van Gogh's painting Irises. It was a world record fee for a painting. Subsequently, it emerged that Sotheby's had furnished a loan to subsidise the purchase.

Sotheby s floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 1998.

In 2000 a price-fixing scandal erupted. Taubman was fined $7.5m and served a ten-month-long prison sentence in the United States. In the years that followed his release he continued to be a generous philanthropist. He sold his final stock holding in Sotheby s in 2005.

Location: Hodgson Wine Bar, 115 Chancery Lane, WC2A 1PP (orange, turquoise)

34-35 New Bond Street, W1A 2AA (orange, turquoise)

See Also: EGYPTOLOGY Sekhmet

Website: www.sothebys.com

A Disarming Curator

Howard Hodgkin's (1932-2017) reputation as a painter was slow to develop. He was not to have his first retrospective until 1976. In the art world at that time, he was better known as an art teacher and astute collector who had managed to acquire works with a very limited budget. During that decade and the previous decade his lover was the fellow collector Stuart Cary Welch, a one-time curator of Islamic & Later Indian Art at the Harvard Art Museum. Welch always regarded his own collecting as having priority over their relationship, which had begun in 1959. He would go to any lengths to trump his lover's chance of acquiring something even though he could always outbid because his personal and institutional resources were far greater. Upon one occasion then men the two men were attending a Sotheby's sale, during which they sat next to one another. They both wanted a particular item. During the bidding for it Welch physically held down Hodgkin's arm. The painter was so shocked by this action that he found himself unable to raise his other one.

Hodgkin began a relationship with someone else in 1983.

David Backhouse 2024