Heritage Auctions

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Former Christie's VP will lead as Director of Business Development and Trusts & Estates

DALLAS, TX: Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas, Texas, the world's third largest auction house with annual sales exceeding $700 million, has hired former Christie's Vice President Mark Prendergast to oversee the firm's new office in Houston, Texas. It is part of Heritage's expansion that includes upcoming galleries in Beverly Hills, California and New York City.

Prendergast has been named Heritage's Director of Trusts & Estates, and will be based at the new Houston office located at 5850 San Felipe Road, Suite 500. He will focus on providing assistance to fiduciary professionals in every aspect of appraising and liquidating their clients' tangible assets. He also heads the Houston office in a general business development role as Heritage's representative in Houston and South Texas.

"I am excited to join Heritage and bring my abilities to such a progressive and growing company," he said. "With the opportunity to increase Heritage's presence in the Houston market and beyond, I look forward to helping individuals, estate executors, advisors and art professionals with all their art/collectibles needs and to ultimately achieve mutually beneficial solid sale results."

Prendergast brings with him more than a decade of experience in the high-end auction business. As a Vice President with Christie's he was involved with business development and building relationships with private collectors, museums, corporations and financial advisors. Covering a five-state region for the company, he was responsible for bringing to sale the first million dollar lot in a Photographs auction - a complete set of portfolios/books by Edward Curtis, The North American Indian, 1907-1926 - selling for $1.4 million in October of 2005. That same year, he also won the consignment of a prominent Texas estate that included George de Forest Brush's exquisite painting, Council of the War Party (1886), which sold for $2.59 million against a high presale estimate of $500,000.

More recently Prendergast secured for sale a second century Roman marble of Emperor Hadrian, which sold in December of 2008 for more than $900,000, as well as a previously unknown portrait by 18th Century master Jean-Etienne Liotard that sold for $638,000 in January of 2009. These treasures came to the auction market from a Louisiana corporate collection and Houston private collector, respectively.

"He has a proven track record of finding rare and valuable items and realizing great prices for the consignors," said Ed Beardsley, Managing Director, Fine & Decorative Arts at Heritage, "no matter what the broader market conditions are."

Having lived the itinerant life of many oil business children, Prendergast gained an appreciation of and deep affinity for art and history at an early age. Moving from New York when he was 10 years old to live for a number of years in Saudi Arabia and then Trinidad, he was exposed to the world's wonders and masterpieces through his extensive travels. He earned his degree in Art History from Vanderbilt University.

"I was blessed to have had the experiences I did as a child," he said. "My fascination with travel, world cultures and art continues today and is born from the opportunities of my youth. My Junior High class trip was to Nepal and Boy Scout camp was in Germany."

For more information, call Mark at 713-899-8364, or email him at MPrendergast@HA.com.

Heritage Auction Galleries is the world's third largest auction house, and by far the largest auctioneer of rare collectibles, with annual sales more than $700 million, and 450,000+ registered online bidder members. For more information about Heritage's auctions, and to join and gain access to a complete record of prices realized, along with full-color, enlargeable photos of each lot, please visit www.HA.com.

Want to get the up-to-the-minute updates and breaking news stories about Heritage? Get them as they happen at: www.Twitter.com/HeritagePress; www.Twitter.com/JimHalperin; Facebook: Heritage Auction Galleries.

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