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The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby's-Christie's Auction House Scandal

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The Art of the Steal is a morality play but the morals we must draw from it differ somewhat from those proclaimed in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. (The book should have been dedicated "to those who got away with it".) True some of the sinners discover that the wages of sin are destruction (incomes, careers, reputation and in one instance, liberty). However, there are also less morally satisfying `morals' to be drawn. Chief of these is: if you must sin make sure you get it all down on paper and then squirrel the evidence away so that later you can get away with your sins by acts of cowardice, betrayal, and the skilfully orchestrated whistle blowing known as `turning state's evidence'. Do all that and you may evade the penitentiary and even hang on to millions in severance pay, stock options and mansions. Also exposed is the ludicrous capriciousness of the American criminal justice system where so much legal action is dominated by the desire of lawyers to add to their reputations - and their incomes. Certainly the connection between the courts and morality - or indeed justice - seems coincidental. Here we find the very marginally guilty going to prison, the very guilty walking away, and the outrageously, indeed confessedly, guilty slapped firmly on the wrist. Finally, this book delivers one clear lesson to all future corporate sinners. If everybody keeps his big mouth shut everybody will get away with everything, no matter how dire the suspicions of the Justice Department. Am I serious? Alas, I am.
Christopher Mason's enthralling book concerns the great Sotheby's and Christie's scandal, which rocked the art collecting world and `high society' across continents during 2000. The blurb states that chief executive officers Christopher Davidge (Christie's) and Dede Brooks (Sotheby's) conspired to "cheat their clients out of millions of dollars". In fact the issue is more that they colluded to deny their clients costly incentives to become their clients. The often comic sometimes revolting thread running through this affair is that terminal greed was to be found everywhere - except, ironically, among the dedicated, devoted, grotesquely underpaid employees of the auction houses. The executives were greedy for power and the privileges of great wealth. The dealers, collectors and sellers were greedy for the last dollar from their Cezannes and Van Goghs (neither artist made a brass farthing from painting) for, as the Duchess of Windsor remarked, "You can never be too rich." Another irony: although colluding with Christie's in defiance of the anti-trust laws put the chairman of Sotheby's, Alfred Taubman, one of the richest men in America, in jail for a year, and put his really guilty executive officer, Mrs Dede Brooks, under house arrest for six months and stripped her of her wealth, it was the decades long intense competition between Christies and Sotheby's which had brought this situation about. Their competing for clients and the grotesque incentives they offered were bankrupting them. Finally the hounds of the Justice Department came baying at the door and after them the lawyers, like genial sharks, charging more an hour than a Sotheby's fine art expert could hope to earn in a week. By that time Davidge had unearthed his long cached evidence and cut a deal with the Justice Department which was so good for Christies as well as himself that the new management, trying to come to grips with the destruction he had brought upon them, had to swallow their bile and pay him millions in severance pay. Christies lost millions in lawsuits from hungry clients but escaped criminal prosecution - most unjustly.
What makes this book so good is the author's expertise. He moves in the circles whose lifestyle he mercilessly lays bare. He does not lambast the rich with inflammatory invective. He is more deadly than that. He gets them to spill the beans about themselves, a `child among them taking notes' - and faith, he prints it! The opulence and tasteless extravagance are so gross, the self-absorption of so many are so blatant, that Mason needs no rhetoric. Remember Gordon Gecko? "Greed is good, greed works!" Right on Gordon - but keep an eye on the Anti-Trust Laws!

Written like a particularly juicy and in-depth Vanity Fair tell-all, Christopher Mason's book, The Art of the Steal details the Christie's / Sotheby's price-fixing scandal that roiled the art world several years ago. Through meticulous research and countless interviews Mason brings to life for the average reading-joe the main players purported to be involved in the crime--Dede Brooks and Alfred Taubman of Sotheby's, and Christopher Davidge and Anthony Tennant of Christie's.

Mason is clearly comfortable inhabiting the social circles he seeks to chronicle and the evidence lies in the sheer number of candid interviews he managed to conduct in preparation for writing the book. The story unfolds largely through anecdote (often times to scathing and hilarious effect), and the method mainly succeeds here. The first half of the book sails along at a breathless pace as Mason recounts the arrangement and execution of illegal collusion by the two auction houses. Brooks and Davidge-the then-CEOs of Sotheby's and Christie's, respectively--are portrayed as power-hungry aristocratic wannabes with no concept of the ramifications their unlawful meetings could produce. God-on-high Tennant (Christie's then-chairman) is credited with masterminding the scheme, while Alfred Taubman (Sotheby's then-chairman) is portrayed as the hapless scapegoat who took the hardest fall.

Unfortunately, the amusement of reading bon mot upon bon mot eventually wears off and the later chapters become bogged down with gossipy or repetitive stories that often do nothing to further the narrative. Where the author's sympathies lie also becomes quite plain in the book's final third. Mason has clearly not taken a strictly journalistic approach to his writing and this shortcoming ultimately weakens the facts so painstakingly narrated in the book's first half.

Nonetheless, The Art of the Steal succeeds in much the same way a good soap opera does. Most of the characters depicted between its pages have more money than some of the planet's smaller nations, and everyone knows it's a guilty pleasure to witness the spectacular fall of the uber-rich. The Art of the Steal ultimately proves itself to be a must-read for both watchdogs of the glitterati and those addicted to society columns.

Copyright 2004

This book is a real page turner and yet is packed with fascinating and well researched details of both the art world in general and the auction house scandal in particular. Mason manages to give fascinating character descriptions of all the main players laying out both their qualities as well as their, sometimes fatal, flaws. While reading like a thriller, The Art of the Steal is both a social and economic commentary on our times and a historical document. I would recommend this book highly.

A riveting read about personal and corporate greed, ambition and manipulation in the high-stakes business of art auctions. The book is a fascinating insider's view of the worlds of fine art, international jet-set society, corporate finance and the law.

A cautionary tale. And while some of the wrong doers are punished for their hubris and their criminal activities, unlike fiction others equally or more guilty continue to flourish in spectacular ways.

It's got everything: sex, money, religion, politics, royalty, foreign travel, the media, gossip, jealousy, spite, comedy, tragedy, and of course crime and punishment. What a story!

Christopher Mason reveals the ins and outs of the complex and deceptive art world in London and New York. He has the inside scoop of what really happened. Sure makes the courtroom drama seem like only part of the story was told on the stand. The careers that were destroyed were not only Mr. Taubman's and Mrs. Brooks's. The reputation of these two premier huoses in thrown into question forever. A good read, and a quick one. The writer brings you along and you are hanging on the side of your seat to see who does what. I recommend it without question.

A great description of New York high life amidst one of the biggest money scandals of recent memory. Mason keeps the pace fast and sizzling. Lots of colorful details of the characters of high society and the art world make this a fast paced read. He even kees the business and legal side of the story scintilating. It kept me up late into the nights. A must read!

Dede Brooks is portrayed as a brilliant but flawed individual who is a Meglomaniac, with a capital M. Those of us who knew her well would agree! She denied her involvement in a commission fixing scheme for several years and finally woke up and realized what she did. The reputation of both Sotheby's and Christie's are ruined forever in my eyes. What a sad story of power, greed and mental illness. The anonymous sources tell the real secrets of what happened. A trail of damage was left in her wake...and now she sits in her Manhattan apartment or in her Hobe Sound $4 million getaway, alone and without friends. She made her own grave and she sound be tarred and feathered! Why didn't she go to jail? Thank you to Christopher Mason for uncovering a true mystery.

Vivid description of the eternal battle between old and new (money) and the rise and fall of some of the upstarts. A good example of what will happen if first generation money is allowed to take over a respectable business and to defile it with their greed and love of display. After all: it takes three generations to become a gentleman...
Special attention for the comments of Lord and Lady Hindlip.

I completely loved this book from the minute it hit my kindle until the minute I started reading it for the second time. No, it is not at all confusing as one reviewer has stated. Is it a little like a Vanity Fair article; yes, but a very good one that you wish was 400 pages instead of 12. With this book you get your wish. Mason is a fantastic writer in my book and I loved his style and verve. It is an increble story of greed, foolishness and a little bit of stupidity thrown in. Careers and reputations were destroyed and the sad thing is that they didn't have to be. I highly recommend this book if you like art, culture, law and business. It has a little of everything.

The time was December 1999. It was Davidge of Christie's v. Diane (Dede) Brooks of Sotheby's since Tennant and Taubman of Christie's and Sotheby's, heads of the boards of directors, had seemingly conspired to fix prices. They, Taubman and Tennant, sought to withdraw from the fray and view the matter from on high while tasking their underlings to work out the details.

Alfred Taubman was the white knight to Sotheby's in 1993 when he acquired a controlling interest in it. He had been a developer of luxury shopping centers. Taubman's father lost all his money in the Depression. As a teenage retail clerk Taubman urged his employer to break down threshold resistance to buying through focus on the aesthetic and emotional experience of the customer at the point of entry.

Taubman was entranced by the ambition and intelligence of Dede Brooks. She learned finance at Citibank in their lending program and worked initially as an unpaid assistant at Sotheby's. The auction process intrigued her.

In the old Sotheby's people were made to feel stupid. Alfred Taubman wanted Sotheby's to forsake such off-putting arrogance. (This was an instance of solving the problem of threshold resistance.) Taubman was fixated on market share. He saw that the business practices of the auction houses were antiquated and that their incomes could be increased. He suggested leveraging art ownership.

Davidge was given the job of transforming Christie's to a sleek modern firm to compete with Taubman's Sotheby's. (Behind his back he was referred to as the butler for class reasons.) In the seventies there had been a dust-up over buyer's premiums. The two firms were alleged to have colluded and fines were imposed in Britain.

In 1988 Taubman took Sotheby's public. Staff was reminded that American anti-trust laws were punitive. At Christie's Davidge was protected by Lord Carrington. Carrington led the firm until Sir Anthony Tennant became chairman of the board in 1993, (whereby he opened the dialogue with Alfred Taubman). That same year Davidge was appointed CEO of Christie's and Dede Brooks at Sotheby's acquired a promotion to global duties.

Investigation for anti-competitive practices began in Britain in 1996. Around the same time carefully wrought, (and potentially illegal), agreements began to unravel. In 1997 the U.S. Justice Department in Manhattan subpoened Sotheby's and Christie's officals on suspician of colluding on the setting of commisssions. In June 1997 the NEW YORK TIMES broke the story.

Christies, providing documents, (mostly Davidge's meticulous notes), sought entry into the government's anti-trust amnesty program. Christie's moves came two and a half years after the initial interviews and requests for documents. Davidge, no longer Christie's CEO, was needed to bring the case against Taubman and Brooks and Christie's was able to secure his cooperation. Sotheby's and Brooks entered pleas of guilty. Taubman was found guilty at trial.

This book is a stunning narrative of a smashingly interesting case.