Photo via Twitter.
Phillips New York.
Phillips auction house has reportedly made three new hires, all former Christie’s employees.
In industry newsletter the Baer Faxt, art advisor and market journalist Josh Baer reports that Jean-Paul Engelen, Hugues Joffre, and Robert Manley are all headed to the New York-based auction house. artnet News’ sources have confirmed the moves though Phillips declined to comment.
Under CEO Edward Dolman, who took the helm at Phillips in July 2014, the house has revealed plans to expand to Hong Kong; in 2014, it had expanded to London. Dolman also hired ex-Brooklyn Museum director Arnold Lehman this summer.
Dolman had been director of the office of the chairperson of the Qatar Museums authority for three years and acting CEO of the Qatar Museums Authority for two, following 27 years at Christie’s in positions such as CEO and chairman of global business development.
Phillips’ contemporary art department is known for focusing on younger artists, but has also had impressive sales of figures like Francis Bacon and Ai Weiwei, who achieved a record price there in May.
The house also has departments of design, prints, jewels, photographs, watches, and Latin American art. David Georgiades and August O. Uribe are worldwide co-heads of contemporary art; they both formerly worked at Sotheby’s.
Jean-Paul Engelen.
Photo via Twitter.
Dutch-born Engelen has been head of public art at the Qatar Museums since 2011. He had previously worked for Christie’s in both London and New York for 16 years, in positions including senior director and specialist in postwar and contemporary art. Among the recent public art initiatives in Qatar was Richard Serra‘s “East-West/West-East,” a dramatic sculptural installation in the desert.
Hugues Joffre.
Photo via Blouin Artinfo.
French-born Joffre left Christie’s, as artnet News reported, in March. He started working at Sotheby’s when he was just 24. He then moved on to Christie’s where he made waves in the fields of 19th- and 20th-century art. That stint lasted from 1992 to 2001 when he left to work as an independent advisor. He then returned to the house in 2001 focusing on the market for postwar European art.
Robert Manley.
Photo via LinkedIn.
Robert Manley was most recently deputy chairman of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s New York, and had previously served there as a specialist in the same department. Manley could often be seen conveying phone bids for big-ticket items like Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog (Orange), which set an auction record for a living artist when it fetched $58.4 million in November 2013, selling to an anonymous buyer via Manley.