Quick Steps to Sell Art Collectibles at Auction

In 1994, Ed started his auction career at Butterfield & Butterfield in San Francisco.  In 2000, Ed moved to Los Angeles to manage the expanding operation there, through the transition to new owner eBay, then again through the London-based new owner Bonham’s in 2002.  The first decade of this century saw an enormous expansion of auctions on the internet but nothing like what we see today.      

At Heritage Auctions, Ed is focused on the Fine & Decorative Arts department, which covers 15 categories including Silver, Art Glass, American & Urban Art, among others.  He also oversees Nature & Science, Trusts & Estates, and Appraisal Services.  Ed was actively involved in Heritage’s expansion to regional offices in New York, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, and Chicago. Heritage also has offices in Hong Kong, London, and Europe.  Ed enjoys being part of one of the industry’s fastest expanding auction houses.

Roberta Kramer is a 25-year veteran of the art and antiques world. Before beginning her career in auctions, she spent two years curating for the Ben Uri Art Society in London. Returning stateside, Roberta served as Gallery Director for J. Rosenthal Fine Art until her interest in Continental Antiques led her to a management position at Rita Bucheit, Ltd. In 1992, with her extensive knowledge of fine art and antiques, Roberta started her auction career at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers as an account executive. In 1995, after taking a leave to found the Antiques Center at Kinzie Square, she was named Consignment Director of newly formed Chicago auction house, Susanin’s Auctions. While at Susanin’s she also managed the appraisal department and served as principal auctioneer alongside Sean Susanin. In 2001 she founded Roberta Kramer & Associates, Inc., a firm specializing in appraisals and art consulting. A recognized USPAP qualified appraiser and licensed auctioneer, Roberta has served as a charity auctioneer for numerous charities and has been a frequent contributor to Art & Antiques Magazine. 

Roberta joined HA in 2016, opening the first regional office in the Midwest for the company.  Along with her staff of specialists in multiple areas of collecting, she serves the Chicago and greater midwestern region of the country.

Karen has enjoyed a 45-year career in decorative arts, fueled by her interest in the history of the interior and its furnishings. She joined Heritage Auctions in 2007, following Heritage Auction’s first decorative arts auction in 2004. She oversees the broad-ranging auction category of Furniture and Decorative Arts, which covers ceramics, glass, woodwork, and metalwork in addition to furniture. Karen helped build the first standalone biannual auction of Fine Silver & Objects of Vertu in 2008 and has directed the auction series since 2012.

Karen’s fascination with the decorative arts started in her earliest years, spending weekends at Estate Sales in her hometown of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and developed as an undergraduate Interior Design student at Michigan State University, where she was given the keys to the storage below the Spartan’s football stadium with instruction to catalog their extensive holdings of donated decorative arts from the 19-20th centuries. Her interests led to an internship at the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Department of Furniture & Woodwork, where the curatorial staff directed her research and orchestrated weekend trips to magnificent country houses. They guided her to a Master’s Degree in Decorative Arts History from Parsons’s School of Design and the New School for Social Research through the Cooper Hewitt Museum.  Her career began in the curatorial departments of distinguished collections, including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where she oversaw the reinstallation of the decorative arts collections and period rooms as well as establishing the collecting direction of the Norwest Modernism Collection.

Following the birth of her first child, Karen changed course and directed furniture and decorative arts galleries in Birmingham, MI, Chicago, and Atlanta.  An adventuresome spirit led her and her family to Cyprus, where she operated a bed and breakfast while studying the ancient ruins, particularly the floor mosaics of the UNESCO site in Paphos.  Returning to the US in 2003 she developed a decorative arts history curriculum and taught graduate and undergraduate courses for institutions, including Georgia State University and Dallas College, before joining Heritage Auctions full-time in 2007.

Aviva Lehmann joined Heritage in January 2013 after 14 years in the auction industry. With over 20 years of in-depth knowledge and experience in American Art, she holds a broad interest in all aspects of the field. Aviva previously served as Vice President, Specialist in the American Art department at Christie’s, where she was instrumental in establishing dozens of auction records in virtually every category of American Art. While directing their midseason auctions in 2004-06, she doubled the value of these sales.  

During the course of her career at Heritage, Aviva has been instrumental in bringing some of the finest single-owner collections to market, including the Judson Ball collection of Western and Wildlife Art, the Max Ember collection of Modernism and Design, and the Barry and Maria King collection of early American modernism. Her catalog for the King collection has been dubbed by American Fine Art Magazine ‘the new handbook for early American modernism’.   

In addition to her work on single-owner collections, Aviva has been instrumental in establishing dozens of new auction records in the arena of American Art, and she was also responsible for bringing masterworks by Robert Motherwell, Georgia O’Keeffe, Helen Frankenthaler, Milton Avery, Norman Rockwell and Joseph Christian Leyendecker, among many others, to the auction block at Heritage.   

Aviva lectures on American Art at museums and institutions throughout the country. She also serves as an adjunct professor of Appraisals and Valuation in the Art Administration Master’s Program at New York University. Aviva has been featured as a tastemaker in various publications, including Forbes, Intelligent Collector and Christie’s Magazine, and was recently interviewed by Artnet.com as a ‘power broker’ in the arena of American Art. As an expert on the art market, Aviva has been a contributor to broadcast television shows on Fox News and Bloomberg.

Alissa is well versed on the art market, having managed multi-million dollar collections nationwide, helping collectors find premier paintings by important California and Western artists; and having worked both at major California and New York auction houses and alongside some of the country’s most respected dealers.  Alissa received her BA in Art History with an emphasis in the Italian Renaissance, then pursued her Master’s in American Fine and Decorative Arts. After spending several years in New York, Alissa decided to return to her native grounds to specialize in the great masters of the American West, working in the California Painting department of another prominent auction house and as Director of a highly recognized California Art Gallery. “I realized early on that this niche of the market is filled with passionate collectors and I feel fortunate to continue to build relationships with those buyers ” In addition to her role as Director, California Art, Alissa acts as one of the company’s auctioneers.

Frank Hettig is Heritage Auction’s Vice President of Modern & Contemporary Art. In addition to more than 12 years of auction experience, Frank has a well-regarded reputation as a curator, critic and connoisseur of contemporary art.  

Trained as an art historian at the University of Amsterdam, Frank advised on exhibitions and museum catalogues and has lectured at a number of colleges and universities both in the US and overseas.  At both the Goethe-Institute Los Angeles (German Cultural Institute) and the Consulate General of the Netherlands, he conceptualized and coordinated a variety of international cultural events including lectures and symposia, guest artist exhibitions and performing arts programs.  As an independent art critic, he has written reviews and features in English, German and Dutch for publications such as Archis, Art/Text, Artforum, Bauwelt, Forum International, das Kunstwerk, Kunstforum and Metropolis, among others.  Frank has handled auctions of many private collections as well as corporate art collections including a Fortune 100 Company, the Estate of Dr. Edmund Pillsbury, among others.  He is also overseeing Heritage’s growth in Latin-American Art and Chinese Art.

As the Director of the Texas Art department, Atlee Marie Phillips has overseen bi-annual record-breaking Texas art auctions since joining Heritage Auctions in 2008.  She has spearheaded several important corporate and private collections that have come to auction, including the Estate of Dr. Edmund Pillsbury, the Estate of Kelly Fearing, and The Belo Collection.  In addition, Atlee works as a Consignment Director across all categories throughout her native Fort Worth.  She has also written articles, participated in panel discussions, lectured, and given radio and television interviews regarding Texas art and the auction market.

Atlee grew up in the art business, working with her parents, J. O. "Dutch" Phillips and Mary Frances Phillips, at their galleries in Fort Worth and Dallas. She studied art history at The Colorado College and later attended the graduate program at Tulane University in order to study Aztec and Colonial Mexican art.  She has completed extended internships at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.  She continually strives to raise the public awareness of Texas art, promote Texas artists, and assist Texas art enthusiasts in building wonderful collections.

Art historian Dr. Marianne Berardi serves as Heritage Auctions' Senior Expert in American Art and Director of Old Master Paintings. Her dual expertise in American 20^th-Century Art and Dutch 17^th Century Painting was the combination which first brought her to Heritage in 2006 to research and write the book-length auction catalogue for the Walsh Family Collection of American and European Painting sold through Heritage in the Fall of 2006. Since that time she was responsible for bringing to Heritage the following collections and estates, as well as researching and writing their accompanying catalogues: the Hon. Judge Paul H. Buchanan Collection of American Painting (November 11, 2009);Lucille Ball Memorabilia from the Collection of Susie Morton and Gary Morton (Lucille Ball’s second husband) (November 14, 2010); The Collection of Paul Gregory and Janet Gaynor (March 20, 2011); Contemporary Art from the Estate of Dr. Edmund P. Pillsbury (October 26, 2011); Selections from the American Painting Collection of the Jean and Graham Devoe Williford Charitable Trust (May 15, 2012; May 11, 2013; and May 2014 forthcoming).

Marianne holds both a M.A. in 20^th Century American Art and a Ph.D. in Dutch 17^th-Century Art from the University of Pittsburgh. She held a Kress Fellowship; a Theodore Rousseau Fellowship in connoisseurship studies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and two consecutive Andrew W. Mellon fellowships. During her five-year tenure as Director of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of American Art in St. Joseph, Missouri, she published widely on Benton and the Regionalists. In 1993, she curated a comprehensive exhibition of the work of Thomas Hart Benton and many of his pupils whom she tracked down from many regions of the United States. The exhibition, Under the Influence: The Students of Thomas Hart Benton (1993), was accompanied by her book-length catalogue of the same title. In 2010, her book on Benton pupil Margot Peet (Discovering Margot Peet) was published by Posterity Press. Following her move to Cleveland, Ohio, Marianne served as Director of the Cleveland Artists Foundation. She has taught art history at the University of Pittsburgh, the Kansas City Art Institute, Case Western Reserve University, and John Carroll University.  She has a reading knowledge of French, Dutch, German, and Italian. She is currently completing a monograph and catalogue raisonne on the celebrated Dutch flower painter, Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), on whom she is the recognized authority.

Holly Sherratt has more than 20 years of fine art experience and has worked in the auction industry for more than fifteen years. As a well-regarded Modern and Contemporary Art specialist, she has directed the sales of hundreds of important collections nationwide. She was the founding Director of Made in California Art at a major auction house and was instrumental in establishing world record prices for dozens of artists. She was also Head of Museum Programs at the world’s largest art online retailer, managing strategic partnerships with museums such as MoMA, British Museum, and the de Young. With vast auction, business development, and non-profit experience, she has built relationships with collectors, arts organizations, and fiduciaries around the world.  

Holly received her BA in Art History from UCLA and MA in Visual Studies (Art History and Critical Theory) from UCI. She trained at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Laguna Art Museum. Holly also completed coursework at Loyola Law School and received the distinguished American Jurisprudence Awards for both legal writing and criminal law before transferring to graduate school. She is an active member of the San Francisco arts community. She served on the Board of Directors of Contemporary Extension at the SFMOMA and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of San Francisco.

Todd Hignite is Executive Vice President of Heritage Auctions with a focus on art consignments across multiple categories. He has been instrumental in developing the markets for illustration and comic art and has managed many of the most valuable and important single-owner collections and estates to be sold privately and at auction, setting the world-record price for American comic art and establishing records for scores of artists as diverse as Robert Crumb and Frank Frazetta.

Todd is author of the books The Art of Jaime Hernandez/The Secrets of Life and Death (Abrams) and In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists (Yale University Press), was founding editor of Comic Art magazine, and has recently published essays on Philip Guston and Richard Prince. He has extensive experience in all capacities of the art world, including working for several years at Pace Gallery, New York. Todd holds a Master’s Degree in Art History from Washington University in St. Louis and acted as inaugural curator for its Dowd Modern Graphic History Library. He has organized a number of institutional and commercial exhibitions, notably the retrospective R. Crumb's Underground, which originated at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, and toured US museums including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, and the Frye Art Museum, Seattle. 

Carolyn Mani's background includes twenty-four years of experience in both live and online auctions, as well as an extensive background in appraising and vetting Furniture and Decorative Arts, Fine Art, Collectibles, Musical Instruments and Entertainment Memorabilia. 

Prior to joining Heritage, Carolyn was Director and Auctioneer at Bonhams (Butterfields).  She oversaw the estate department for more than ten years, established a proven track record in working with large consignments and institutions and was an accredited member of the International Society of Appraisers (ISA). She is currently a certified USPAP appraiser.  

Most recently, she has brought to auction the celebrity estates of Shirley Temple Black, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Trini Lopez and Phyllis McGuire with outstanding white glove results. 

As an auctioneer she has raised millions of dollars and provided auction services to numerous charities including John Wayne Cancer Society, Stars for a Cause, The LOOC foundation, Wheels for Humanity, The Beverly Hills Bar Association Barristers, The Chrysalis Foundation, Project Angel Food, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, The Chuck Jones Center for Creativity, Ed Asner Family Foundation and many others.

Sarahjane Blum joined Heritage in 2024, bringing with her decades of experience as an art dealer, cultural historian, curator, and writer. She is an internationally acknowledged expert in the fields of Illustration Art, and photography.  

Before joining Heritage, Blum was the co-owner of Grapefruit Moon Gallery, an innovative and leading player in the fields of Illustration Art and photography. There she carved out an international reputation via media and live appearances, curated gallery shows, and online engagement. Blum has been a featured presenter at museums, academic conferences, and national collector events. Her writing on film and culture has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, among other places. She is the co-author of The Art of Pin Up (Taschen Books, 2014) and is featured in documentaries on Pin Up Art and Glamour photography. She holds an MA in History from Georgetown University, where she completed additional PhD coursework. 

Taylor Curry joined Heritage Auctions in 2013 and over his career, has been instrumental in the growth of the Modern & Contemporary Department. Having had the opportunity to live around the world in his youth, Taylor acquired a deep appreciation for art in its many forms. As that grew into a passion, he decided to pursue and ultimately earn an undergraduate degree in the History of Art from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. While completing his studies, he trained with the renowned Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh, where he developed a keen interest in the business side of the art world. Looking to build on his gallery experience, he applied and was accepted to the Sotheby's Institute of Art and went on to earn a Master's Degree in Art Business.

Following graduation, he joined Heritage and has since enjoyed working across a number of fields in the auction business. In 2016, he joined Heritage's Modern and Contemporary Art team and is currently the Director of Modern & Contemporary Art in New York. Combining his love of contemporary art and knowledge of the auction business, and looks to provide his clients with the highest possible level of service. One of the founding specialists of the "In Focus" and Urban Art sales, Taylor focuses on advising collectors on emerging artists and collecting, selling, and buying blue-chip artwork. Part of Taylor's success has been his ability to bring new and fresh works to market while maintaining an extensive network of collectors, dealers, advisors, and institutions. 

Taylor prioritizes trust and transparency in all his professional relationships and has completed the coursework and examination in the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. As an expert in the art market, he has lectured widely, most recently at New York University and Sotheby's Institute of Art. Follow Taylor's work at Heritage on Instagram @TheTaylorCurry for an inside look.

Specialties include: Modern & Contemporary Art, Prints & Multiples, and Urban Art.

Taylor Gattinella nurtured a lifelong passion for learning about art before joining Heritage as a Consignment Director for Fine & Decorative Arts. A double major in Art History and French at Southern Methodist University, she interned with a local auction house and was hooked from her first experience researching and handling important works of art.

Along with her time at Heritage, Gattinella has worked in the auction industry for over 10 years at houses such as Dallas Auction Gallery, Christie's and Phillips. This experience includes multiple areas of the business from Client Services to Marketing to specializing in the Fine Art secondary market. Her specialties include American Paintings & Sculptures, Decorative Arts, European Paintings & Sculptures, Modern & Contemporary Art, Prints & Multiples, and Western & California Art. 

Exploring new cities and their museums to learn about the local history and art scene is one of her greatest passions. Based in Heritage’s New York City office, she also spends much of her time frequenting the city’s numerous art institutions. 

Nick Nicholson joined the Business Development team at Heritage Auctions in October 2023. In this role, Nick supports the Trusts & Estates and Appraisal Services teams. With more than twenty-five years of experience at auction houses, galleries, museums, and art advisory services, Nick is uniquely qualified to assist those requiring expert assistance in Estate Planning, estimation and appraisal of their collections of fine and Decorative art.  

Nick began his career at Christie’s in European Furniture and Decorative Arts before his promotion to Specialist in Russian Works of Art, New York. He later served as SVP and Division Head of Furniture and Decorative Arts at Freeman’s, overseeing five specialist departments and performing generalist appraisal services for each.  Nick opened his own advisory and appraisal service in 2008, and as a USPAP-compliant appraiser worked with private collectors, estate attorneys, public institutions, and museums around the U.S.  

Nick also serves as Heritage’s Senior Specialist in Russian Works of Art overseeing Russian painting, sculpture, silver, enamels, icons, porcelain, historical and Imperial ephemera, and works by the famed court jeweler Carl Faberge, in which he is a recognized expert.  Nick has offered works from the collections of Landsell Christie, Jane Englehardt, Rudolf Nureyev, Frank Sinatra, and Malcolm Forbes at auction. Nick’s Russian curatorial experience includes exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Icon Museum & Study Center, the Russian History Museum, and the Tsarskoye Selo Museum-Preserve among others. 

A Consignment Director in Urban Art at Heritage Auctions’ New York office, Walter Ramirez fell in love with the auction business after joining the company in 2014 as an intern. The New York native earned both a BA and MA in Art History from Queens College before working at various galleries in New York City prior to taking his position at Heritage.  

Walter has been involved with a number of consignments that have expanded the Urban Art department’s range of artists and materials, including a recent collection of material that has spanned a 12-month period. A cinephile and avid reader of 19th- and 20th-century absurdist and nihilist literature who also follows baseball, soccer, and basketball, Walter’s personal collections mainly consist of baseball cards and books. 

Samantha Robinson is a Chicago-based Director of Decorative Arts & Design, with interest and expertise in early 20th century and modern & contemporary design, in particular art and studio glass and ceramic. Samantha co-directs Heritage's Pursuit of Beauty: Art Nouveau, Art Deco & Art Glass auction series and has overseen the sale of several important private collections including the Estate of Jerry N. Black, the Collection of Phillip and Gretchen Arth, and the Collection of Jeep & Carla Harned. Samantha is also a licensed auctioneer in the state of Texas. 

Samantha received a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2010 and a Master of Arts in Art in Art History from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas in 2014. Samantha joined the Dallas Museum of Art as a McDermott Graduate Curatorial Intern of Decorative Arts in 2014, advancing to the positions of Digital Collections Content Coordinator in 2015 and finally Interim Assistant Curator in 2016. In addition to managing the research and display of the permanent collection, she curated three special exhibitions - The Wittgenstein Vitrine: Modern Opulence, Shaken, Stirred, Styled: The Art of the Cocktail, and Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion. Samantha served as an Editor at Everything But The House, a Cincinnati-based online estate sale start-up, before joining Heritage Auctions in June 2018.

Nigel Russell was educated at Vassar College and the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he studied Photographic Science and Engineering. He started his career in 1979 at Sotheby's London cataloguing antique cameras and scientific instruments and instituted Sotheby's first auctions devoted solely to cameras, photographic viewers and optical toys. In 1981 he transferred to Sotheby's New York as Assistant Departmental Director of the Collectibles Department and was responsible for the auction of the Dobran Collection of Photographica, the first sale of its kind in America.

After leaving Sotheby's Russell became the curator of the Spira Collection, New York, a private collection of approximately 20,000 items relating to the history of photography. He remained there until 1999, then working at Swann Auction Galleries as the Photographs & Camera Specialist. Subsequent to Swann"s, Russell was back at Sotheby's as the Director of the Photographs Department for Sothebys.com and at Christie's New York as a Photographs Specialist. He also consulted on antique and collectible cameras for Adorama, New York and WestLicht Photographica Auctions, Vienna.

From November 2005 to March 2006, Nigel was a photography consultant for the National Counsel for Culture, Art & Heritage, Doha, Qatar and worked as Photography Curator for the Qatar Museums Authority from November 2006 until March 2013.

Nigel is a major contributor to "The History of Photography As Seen Through The Spira Collection," published by Aperture in the fall of 2001 and co-author of "Spirit Capture: Photographs from the National Museum of the American Indian," published by the Smithsonian in the fall of 1998 as well as a contributor to various photography magazines. He was a member of the advisory committee of the Technology Department of the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House and has also lectured on the Photography Auction Market and Collecting Photographica.