“I loathe getting up in the morning. I simply can’t bear these people who get up at 6.30am, read the papers, exercise, have breakfast, then leave for work at 8.30. To me that’s a complete waste of two hours’ sleeping time. I’ve been doing Pilates for the last six months, really only in order to clear my conscience. The best thing is when my instructor phones to tell me she can’t come. Then I set the alarm and have another half an hour in bed.
Every day for about 20 years I wore red socks with my navy suits. I thought they made me look fetching and interesting. Then, about six months ago, I looked in the mirror and thought: “Why didn’t someone tell me I look a complete prat?” Now my look is more minimalist. But it’s not really me. At weekends I’m a different beast. I wear jeans and potter around the antiques market in Lewes looking like Jeremy Clarkson.
In an ideal world, breakfast would be a full English. Nothing would make me happier than going to the cafe across the road and getting a fried-egg-and-bacon sandwich on white bread. But I have dodgy cholesterol, so that’s out. I have a piece of toast and coffee or a rare treat, a sausage wrapped in bread and butter, when I get to the office.
I have two computer screens on my desk. Don’t ask me why, because technology makes me cry. My secretary calls me a technophobe. The one thing I can do is e-mail, typing slowly with one finger. It’s added to my workload hugely. I can now spend a whole morning just e-mailing. Will I take an auction? Do I know a particular client? Can I think of anyone who might like to buy lot 42?
Our business comes from dealers and private clients who’ve bought a gigantic house and need a mirror and a handful of chairs. Then there are the collectors, people who are obsessed by a particular period or subject, and who snap up things from the catalogue. A big part of my job is to know who’s looking for what. You might be matching a Reynolds to a lady in Surrey or to a foreign collector. Some people have so much money they can buy anything, but you don’t have to be a multimillionaire. I’ve sold a Reynolds for £5,000 and I’ve sold one for £10m. You can collect at every level.
Wonderful things come in over the counter the whole time. We’ve had a lot of discoveries in the past five years. We’ve had a Michelangelo drawing. We recently had a Beethoven manuscript that came from a house in Cornwall. I get terribly excited. The best thing ever was the Rubens that we sold last year. The subject wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea — it was The Massacre of the Innocents — and it had been hanging in a convent, unseen for years. But, love it or loathe it, it was the most wonderful, dramatic, powerful thing I’ve seen in all my 30 years in the art world.
If I’ve got a big morning auction, I’ll take time to prepare. I look at the bids and the reserves. Then I stand on the rostrum and practise the increments. £10m, £10½m, £11m. You need to be focused and not nervous. There’s a fine line between having a useful adrenaline rush and feeling almost hysterical.
I always watch people coming into the bid room. When you’re scanning 300-400 people you can tell who is going to bid by their body language. They are slightly tense, very focused. I often have my eye on someone who hasn’t bid, but who I know is going to. You can also tell if, after someone’s said no, there’s still a bit of bidding left in them. Prod them again and you’ll get another £500,000 out of them.
I’m very chatty, probably a little flirtatious. When I sold the Rubens I went up in million-pound increments. We started at £3m, then someone offered six. It was obvious this picture was going to make a lot of money, but when I passed £30m, I remember thinking: “This is unreal.” When we got to £40m and we were still going strong, I felt quite choked up. The atmosphere in the room was electric. One man desperately wanted it. For weeks, he’d come to the gallery every day and sit for an hour just looking at it. He went north of £35m but it wasn’t enough. By the end there were only two bidders still in, both anonymous, both on the phone, and one was struggling. When the gavel came down at £49½m, the biggest sale price ever, I felt incredibly emotional.
I’m a serious luncher. I might go to Wiltons or Mark’s Club, but I don’t like pretentious food. In fact, it’s a treat just to have a sandwich occasionally. All day long people come into my office. I love that. The door is open and I’m always available for a natter. If I’m doing an evening sale, I go home at about 4.30pm and practise the increments in the bath. Evening sales involve a lot of theatre. The sums are bigger. The stakes are higher.
I often stay at the office until 8pm; then I might go to a Tate or National Gallery dinner or an art fair. The more I circulate, the more I learn. I’m bloody lucky. It’s an extraordinary business to be in. My wife and I usually go to the same Thai restaurant, Blue Jade, in Pimlico every night. But if I’m on my own I eat in. I cook disgusting dinners. I am the filthiest cook, and the terrible thing is,
I don’t mind and neither do my sons.
I don’t know why I don’t go to bed earlier. It’s pathetic. I potter and read newspapers and watch rubbish on TV until much too late, and then have the most awful trouble getting up in the morning.”
Posted on September 23, 2011 by Editors
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