COURTESY SOTHEBY’S
Sotheby’s announced today that it had hired Candy Coleman, the director of Gagosian Gallery’s Los Angeles outpost, as a contemporary art specialist tasked with beefing up the auction house’s presence on the West Coast.
Coleman has spent over two decades at Larry Gagosian’s Beverly Hills gallery, and managed Ed Ruscha, who is based in L.A., for 17 years, until 2012.
“Candy is an established market powerhouse, and she brings to Sotheby’s extensive private sale experience, as well as a commitment to artists over the long term,” Amy Cappellazzo, the chairman of the fine art division at Sotheby’s, said in a statement. “She has helped build extensive private and public collections, while also thoughtfully representing artists’ careers. Candy has also been a key figure on the West Coast for decades, playing a critical role in establishing Los Angeles as the center for Contemporary art that it is today.”
In recent years, Sotheby’s has focused more attention on its offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco as it attempts to court the patronage of ever-growing West Coast collector networks.
“It is an ideal moment to return not only to the auction market, but to Sotheby’s,” Coleman said in a statement. “The art market is in a period of evolution and Sotheby’s is expanding the traditional role of an auction house. I am particularly excited by the opportunities that exist to bridge the secondary market with the interests of artists and their primary markets. The infrastructure and reach of an international auction house, and particularly a publicly-held one, offers distinct benefits to collectors and artists, as well as the market overall.”
This is Coleman’s second go-round at Sotheby’s: she spent a decade in the contemporary art department, from 1985 to 1995, before joining Gagosian as a founding staffer of the L.A. gallery.