COURTESY CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2017
It’s a crowded revolving door at Christie’s today.
In a press release, the auction house announced that it has hired Max Carter, a Christie’s vet who worked in various capacities starting in 2007, as a senior vice president in the Impressionism and modern art department. Carter left Christie’s in 2014 to pursue an MBA at Columbia, and then went to work for Mumbai–based media conglomerate The Times of India. Now he’s been lured back into the Christie’s fold, and will start in June.
During his first go-around at Christie’s, Carter wore a variety of hats, and in 2011 helped organize the First Open alongside sale head Sara Friedlander, who is now the head of the postwar and contemporary department. In a 2011 story on the duo in WWD, the then-24-year-old Carter described his strategy for acquiring big-ticket consignments for First Open, such as Jean Dubuffet’s L’Erratique (1961), which sold for $698,500 at an auction where many works topped out in the low four-figure range.
“I’ve become a very strange dinner guest, I realize,” Carter told WWD. “I’m always noting people’s art and making these quick mental appraisals. You can’t exactly march up to someone’s painting and write down the information when you’re in their home. You’ve got to get good at the quick mental notes. But it’s my life. And I got that Dubuffet for the First Open, didn’t I?”
(The story also revealed that his father is Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair.)
Meanwhile, an 11-year veteran of the house is set to leave for the gallery circuit. The Baer Faxt revealed today that Julie Edelson, the London–based global head of programming at Christie’s, will leave her post to go work for White Cube. It’s unclear what her role at the gallery will entail, but it’s not a gigantic leap for her, as she did time heading up the former Christie’s London gallery space, Haunch of Venison.
It’s just the latest departure for Christie’s, which has already endured a slew of them in the last few months. Some notable defections include CEO Patricia Barbizet, who was replaced by Guillaume Cerutti; postwar and contemporary chairman Brett Gorvy, who left to join Dominique Lévy in a gallery operation; and Jonathan Laib, who went to join David Zwirner.