The passion came first. The craft followed.

Path

From the gallery floor to an independent practice.

To judge a work properly is to be able to read it — and the market it stands in.

I started in a gallery. I trained there and I worked there, and that is where I learned the craft no book contains: placing a work, reading signatures and techniques, judging condition honestly, documenting provenance cleanly. Just as important was the way you deal with people — listening, rather than selling.

The years after that added the experience you only collect inside the market. From working with major auction houses I know both sides of the hammer: how works are catalogued, estimated and placed, what separates a good consignment from a poor one, and why two apparently comparable works end with very different results.

Today I advise independently. I am tied to no auction house and no gallery. Whether a work is better sold privately, at auction, or not placed at all for now, I say so openly — including when the honest answer is to keep it.

What keeps me is curiosity about the single object. Behind every work there is an artist, a previous owner, and a reason it ended up in this particular household. Reconstructing that story is the actual work. The value follows from it.