Recruitment

EARLY needlework specialist Maureen Morris has been appointed to the Board of LAPADA. She joined the country’s largest dealers’ association in 1991 and is already a member of the advisory board of the Olympia Fine Art and Antique Fairs.

Christie’s have announced that a newly-formed department dedicated to single-owner collections and house sales will be headed up by Orlando Rock, assisted by Andrew Waters as director.

SOTHEBY’S have announced that they have given up trying to find a buyer for the controlling stake of disgraced former chairman A. Alfred Taubman.

SOTHEBY’S have started a new staff review and admit that further redundancies are likely.

Lorenzo R. Rudolf has been appointed vice president of International Fine Art Expositions, the David Lester-run fair organising business now owned by dmg world media. Mr Rudolf was the driving force behind ArtBasel for over 10 years before leaving in 1999 to become the director for the Frankfurt Book Fair. He also conceived and set in motion the plans for ArtBasel Miami Beach, launched in December.

Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg have refused to comment on a national press report that they are to cut half of their workforce and scrap their Impressionist and Modern art department.

NEIL Munro, the former managing director of DMG Antiques Fairs, has joined Shropshire-based Wellington Market Company, the owners of Town and Country Fairs, to create a dedicated antiques division.

Peter Waldron, senior silver expert and senior director of Sotheby’s Europe, retired at the end of last year after a 36-year career with the company and 29 years at the rostrum.

BONHAMS have appointed Jon Baddeley, pictured right, to the new role of group head of the Collectors’ department with effect from Monday, February 3.

BONHAMS will call their newly merged American company Bonhams and Butterfields from January 1 and are sending out group managing director Malcolm Barber from London to San Francisco to run it.

RICHARD Madley, former president of Christie’s East, New York, has returned to the UK and joined Hamptons with a view to increasing the firm’s presence in the auction market.

Versatility and a clear career path lead the way: The future of the art and antiques business is centred on small teams with an ability to perform a wide range of tasks beyond their own area of expertise.

NICOLA Beach, who helped set up Drummond Read Recruitment and Training, has formed her own fine arts recruitment company to specialise in a narrower sector of the market.

UK: Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull are expanding their business with the creation of three new jobs, two of them in silver and jewellery.“We are bucking the trend by continuing with our expansion plans as other auction rooms in Scotland reduce their workforce and close offices,” said vice-chairman Paul Roberts.

AUCTION houses, dealers and other fine art businesses can now buy in expertise as and when they need it, rather than having to take on full-time staff.

Robert Brooks, who is in the middle of negotiations concerning the restructuring of Bonhams, says he is working to a target date of February 1 to complete his plans.

Christie’s are to make 23 staff redundant in Los Angeles, their second largest saleroom in America. The decision is part of an ongoing, worldwide cost-cutting programme undertaken by the company following the settlement of the $256m lawsuit over commissions and the downturn in the art market this year.

FRANCE: Francis Briest, France’s leading auctioneer of modern and contemporary art, is to join up with the modern art dealers and booksellers Artcurial (acquired by Nicolas Orlowski from Oréal in 1999).

MALCOLM HORD has announced that he is to retire as chief executive of LAPADA, the Association of Art and Antique Dealers, at the end of May next year.

Victoria Borwick, director of all fine art and antiques fairs at Olympia for the past eleven years, will leave the company after the November Fine Art and Antiques Fair. In a move which stunned the Trade, Mrs Borwick was told last week by Andrew Morris, the chief executive of Earls Court and Olympia, that her role as director of the fairs was redundant.