Business

Saturday October 31, 2009

Your 10 questions with Edward Dolman


CEO of Christie’s International Edward Dolman fields the 10 questions posed to him by our readers.

You’re a rugby player and a Chelsea football club fan. Surely this is unusual in the art business?

I think so. I’ve always followed my passions. I’m very passionate about sports and I’m very passionate about art. I could have been a professional rugby player but life as a sportsman can be very short. At that time, I never thought I would become a chief executive but I’m glad I chose a career in the art business.

You started out at Christie’s as a porter in the furniture department. What exactly do porters do?

They carry things around. We have a big logistics aspect to auctions. We have to move works of art about. You have to take them off lorries, take them to be photographed and take them into the salerooms. So that’s what I was doing – I was carrying things around. But it is an extremely good way of learning about works of art. You handle them and you talk to the specialists, who are the experts. You can learn quite quickly. It’s the best way to learn.

At what point in your career at Christie’s that you realised that you wanted the top job and that it’s within reach?

I never thought that it was within my grasp until just before I got it, really. I had no expectations there.

I was a specialist valuing furniture for the first 12 years of my career. That was what I wanted to do and that was what I did. But I became increasingly interested in management and in improving the environment we were working in – the sales and the company’s profitability.

I realised I couldn’t do that from my position as a specialist and decided to move into management. And once I was in management, I wanted to be as powerful as I could be because I thought I could do the job better.

My interest in management comes from sports. I was very interested in teams and leading teams. I enjoyed captaining teams on the rugby field. I became increasingly interested in the dynamics of leadership and how teams perform. I think a lot of managers today would use sports analogies to picture situations and come up with solutions.

After your appointment as Christie’s CEO, you were described as the first to have been a specialist. Can you explain the significance?

I was the first one to come up from the specialist department, I think. The previous CEOs had come from different areas of the business – operations, logistics, finance.

To be honest, we haven’t had that many CEOs. We were a partnership until the mid-1970s. As a partnership, we didn’t really have a CEO; we had senior partners.

The company has had only three or four CEOs since the change.

After almost 10 years as CEO, what is it about the job that surprises or thrills you?

The things that interested me about the job when I joined Christie’s 25 years ago are still there today.

It’s a wonderful business considering the things we handle – the works of art that I am lucky enough to see almost every day. I also think we are lucky because the people who work for the company are very passionate about what they do.

So I really enjoy the interaction with the people who work for us. And I enjoy the clients. We have a very interesting client base.

I feel very lucky to have met some of the individuals, whether they are powerful businessmen or Hollywood film producers, who are passionate about art as well.

It’s one thing to appreciate art, but how is it connected with the satisfaction you get from your work?

I don’t create works of art. I’m not an artist. But I’ve always responded to great works of art.

I’ve always been powerfully moved by a great work of art or a fantastic piece of sculpture. It has always had an impact on me. I’m the sort of guy whom artists speaks to, I hope. They speak to everybody but I’m very interested in what they have to say.

So that’s the passion that I profess. It’s not the passion of creation; it’s the passion of communication from a work of art.

Have you ever had misgivings about the fact that an art business like Christie’s caters largely for the wealthy?

No, none whatsoever. We don’t cater just for the wealthy. The problem with our brand and with the messages we always give, is that people tend to concentrate on the most expensive things that we sell.

In fact, we have regional salerooms in Amsterdam, Paris, London and New York, where we sell reasonably-priced things, just US$1,500-US$2,000. It depends on your definition of wealthy, I suppose.

I think US$1,500-US$2,000 is attainable for lots of people. We do sell a great deal of those in our local markets.

Right now, which particular piece of art is on your mind often?

I have become very interested in the works of Willem de Kooning.

He’s a great abstract expressionist and he did a series of women’s portraits or depiction – you can’t call them portraits because they are so abstract – in the 1950s and 1960s.

I think they are incredible. If I ever had enough money, I would buy one.

I think it’s an important new direction that art took at that moment.

To me, de Kooning epitomises that abstract expressionism. It was just something magnificent and expressive about what he did. It was new, completely new.

Which current trend in the art business are you most excited about?

I’ve always been interested in Chinese works of art.

It’s very interesting to see its influence on Western art for centuries.

And some of the best Western artists have been influenced by Chinese and Japanese art.

I’m watching with great interest now as Chinese works of art continue to grow in value and become deemed as more and more important as more collectors come forward to buy.

I’m looking forward very much to the sales in Hong Kong at the end of December, when we will have a fantastic collection of Chinese ceramics.

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