Peter Cecil Wilson

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Cecil Wilson , CBE (born March 8, 1913 in London , † June 3, 1984 in Paris ) was an English art dealer . He worked as an auctioneer at the auction house Sotheby’s and managed the company from 1958 to 1980. Through new marketing strategies and the development of new business fields, he was one of the founders of modern auctioning. Under his leadership, Sotheby's transformed from a London auction house to a global company.

Life

family

Peter Wilson came from the upper class of society and belonged to the English nobility. He was born in London in 1913 as the third and youngest son of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Mathew Richard Henry Wilson, 4th Baronet of Eshton Hall and his wife Barbara. His mother was the daughter of Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale. His maternal grandmother, Charlotte Monckton Tennant, was the sister of Margot Asquith , wife of British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith . Wilson attended the elite school Eton College and studied history at New College of the University of Oxford . After about a year he broke off his studies to learn the French language in Paris and Geneva. After that he lived in Hamburg for some time in order to acquire knowledge of German. Here he met his future wife, the botanist Grace Helen Ranken. The couple married on January 10, 1935. This marriage resulted in son Richard Thomas Wilson, born in 1937, and son Edward Philip Wilson, born in 1940. The marriage ended in divorce in 1951, not least because of Wilson's homosexuality.

Career advancement

Wilson began his professional career at Spink & Son, a London coin auction house . He then moved to the Reuters news agency , then worked for the weekly Time and Tide and the collector's magazine Connoisseur Magazine . In 1936 he started working for the auction house Sotheby’s for many years . Initially he worked on cataloging furniture, in 1937 he developed his first own catalog and quickly rose to work in the company. As early as 1938 he was a member of the board of directors and became one of the partners in Sotheby's.

Secret service activities during the Second World War

During the Second World War , Wilson worked for counterintelligence. He initially worked in the mail censorship department in Liverpool , Gibraltar and the Bermuda Islands. He later moved to the MI6 foreign intelligence service . Initially working in St Albans , England , during the war he worked for the secret service in Washington DC and New York City, where he investigated the German espionage network in South America. He later helped to compile a directory of Japanese intelligence workers. The writer Ian Fleming was one of Wilson's friends during this period . Wilson later stated that he inspired the author to create his character as James Bond . Fleming dealt with the topic of auction trading in the short story The Property of a Lady and had James Bond participate in an auction at Sotheby's. Despite an offer to work for MI6 after the war, Wilson decided to return to the auction house Sotheby's. After the first members of the Cambridge Five spy ring were exposed in the early 1950s , rumors arose that Wilson could also belong to this group. Wilson did not study at Cambridge like the Soviet Union spies Kim Philby , Guy Burgess , Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt , but at Oxford, but he met several of them during the war. Especially after the late exposure of Blunt, who, as a respected art historian, had contact with Wilson even after the war, the rumors germinated again, especially since Wilson, like Blunt and Burgess, was homosexual. Evidence of Wilson's secret service activity for the Soviet Union could not be found in the KGB archives either.

Return to Sotheby's

After the war, London developed into the center of the European art trade, which was not least due to Jewish art dealers who had settled in England on the run from Nazi persecution. Wilson, who had good relations with these art dealers, had headed the painting department at Sotheby's for 1949. He saw the established art dealers like Duveen or Wildenstein as competitors. Until the first half of the 20th century, masterpieces of art usually changed hands through the art trade and not at auction. This offered the desired level of discretion for both sellers and buyers. Until then, only less valuable objects remained for the auction houses. Wilson, on the other hand, wanted to open up this market and did take risks. In 1956, for example, he guaranteed the seller of the Adoration of the Shepherds by Nicolas Poussin the considerable sum of 35,000 pounds, just so that this painting would not get into the art market. The auction proceeds were only £ 29,000 and Sotheby's had to pay the difference to the seller. In the long term, however, the introduction of guaranteed sums paid off, as other sellers were now giving their works to Sotheby's instead of contacting art dealers.

Innovations in the auction business

Another goal of Wilson's policy was to internationalize the business. The first opportunity arose when the Egyptian government put the collection of the overthrown King Faruq up for auction. Peter Wilson traveled several times to Cairo, where the auction took place in February and March 1954. This auction was also not a financial success for Sotheby's, as the Egyptian government refused to pay the agreed commissions. However, this auction was an important step for Sotheby's's reputation as an internationally active auction house. Wilson's real goal, however, was the United States art market, previously dominated by the New York auction house Parke-Bernet . The opportunity arose in 1957 when the collection of the banker Wilhelm Weinberg from Scarsdale came onto the market. Wilson was one of the first to recognize the rapidly growing market for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works , and the Weinberg Collection included such works. Wilson managed to convince the estate administrator to hold the auction at Sotheby's. Ten works by Vincent van Gogh were among the highly regarded sales lots , some of which were featured in the film Vincent van Gogh - A Life in Passion , which had recently been shown in cinemas and which had a special advertising effect. In addition, a professional advertising company was hired for the first time for this auction, the agency J. Walter Thompson . The agency sent out numerous invitations to the auction, including one to Buckingham Palace and the still young Queen Elizabeth II surprisingly appeared for a preview at the auction house. The top lot of the exhibition was the painting Les usines à Clichy by Vincent van Gogh, which changed hands for £ 31,000 (now the Saint Louis Art Museum ).

Major auctions

In October 1958, Wilson became chairman of Sotheby's. In the same month the auction of the collection of the banker Jakob Goldschmidt, prepared by Wilson and led as chief auctioneer, caused a stir . This auction with works by Paul Cézanne , Édouard Manet , Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Vincent van Gogh went down in auction history not only because of the record results, but also because of the new marketing strategies introduced by Wilson. This included moving the auction into the evening hours and staging it as a social event. While auctions were previously a place for art dealers and a few collectors, Wilson now invited well-known personalities, for example from the entertainment industry, to a glamorous event. Spurred on by the successful Weinberg auction, Wilson had agreed high guarantee sums for the Goldschmidt collection, all of which had been exceeded. The top lot at this auction was the painting Garçon au Gilet Rouge by Paul Cézanne, which Paul Mellon bought (now the National Gallery of Art ). Other important auctions in 1962 included the auction of the art collection of the writer Somerset Maugham . Towards the end of his career, Wilson achieved one last great success with the auction of the collection of industrialist Robert von Hirsch . This collection of carpets, handicrafts, old master paintings and Impressionist paintings generated total proceeds of £ 25 million.

Internationalization and new business areas

Under Wilson's direction, Sotheby's rose to become a global auction house within a few years. In 1964 Sotheby's acquired the leading New York auction house Parke-Bernet . In the following years, numerous other foreign representations were added - for example in Toronto, Monaco, Amsterdam, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. In his more than twenty-year tenure as director of Sotheby's, he increased the company's sales from £ 5 million to £ 150 million .

As early as 1963, Wilson recognized that the market for old master paintings and Impressionist pictures was limited and that new auction fields were necessary for a growing business in addition to the classic auction fields such as books and art. In 1965 he began to include auctions for historic automobiles in the Sotheby's program, justifying this with the fact that "old automobiles must be viewed as works of fine art just like pictures and sculptures". In 1967 Sotheby's held an auction of photographs for the first time in New York. In 1971 an auction of Hollywood props followed in Los Angeles. Sotheby's also began trading in luxury real estate in the 1970s.

In addition to these new auction fields, Sotheby's also expanded its range of other services under Wilson. For this purpose, for example, the company James Bourlet was taken over, which organized packaging and storage for the company. Another takeover was JJ Patrickson, which restored paintings and supplied frames.

Criticized business practices

Several criticized business practices also fall during Wilson's tenure. Sotheby's has repeatedly accepted consignments from illegal archaeological excavations. In addition, the auction house had a numbered account in Switzerland to handle the payment of painting sales to South Africa and Argentina, for example. The system of buybacks also leads to criticism. At the end of the 1960s, Sotheby's regularly reported unsold objects as sold and used invented names in the sales lists. This business practice became known in 1970 when a soup can painting by Andy Warhol was listed as auctioned for the then record price of 60,000 dollars, but no buyer had actually made such a bid. Wilson also founded several mailbox companies and trust companies for private business. One of his failures in the 1970s was the introduction of a Sotheby's cigarette, which experienced little demand.

Withdrawal from business

In 1980, Wilson resigned as Chairman of Sotheby's and from then on lived at his retirement home, Château de Clavary in Auribeau-sur-Siagne near Grasse in southern France. In the following years he continued to work as a consultant for the company and continued to acquire properties for auctions. He died in Paris in 1984 of complications from cancer.

Awards

  • 1970 Commander, Order of the British Empire (CBE)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 105
  2. ^ A b Peter Watson: From Manet to Manhattan. P. 281.
  3. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 109
  4. ↑ a b Peter Cecil Wilson on thepeerage.com , accessed September 18, 2016.
  5. ^ Peter Watson: From Manet to Manhattan . P. 282.
  6. ↑ In 1937 he put together a catalog for the Edouard Guilhou collection, which included historical rings. In Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 111
  7. ↑ Wilson became a partner when he bought into the company for £ 5,000. The money for this was given to him by his wife, who inherited the financial means. In Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 112
  8. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 113
  9. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 115
  10. ↑ a b Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 116
  11. ↑ James Bond takes part in an auction at Sotheby's in The Property of a Lady , at which a Fabergé egg is being auctioned. This scene is used in the film James Bond 007 - Octopussy .
  12. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . Pp. 116/117.
  13. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 120.
  14. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 124.
  15. ↑ The seller of the Poussin painting was Jocelyn Beauchamp, the buyer was a dealer who bought the painting for the National Gallery in London . In Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . Pp. 126-128.
  16. ^ Peter Watson: From Manet to Manhattan . Pp. 295-297.
  17. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 122/123.
  18. ^ Peter Watson: From Manet to Manhattan . P. 311.
  19. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 135.
  20. ↑ The London branch of the American advertising agency J. Walter Thompson received the order. See Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 136.
  21. ↑ Sotheby's usually did not send invitations to Buckingham Palace and the Queen did not personally participate in auctions. In Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 135.
  22. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 137.
  23. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 138.
  24. ^ Peter Watson: From Manet to Manhattan . P. 314.
  25. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 139.
  26. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 140.
  27. ↑ kind master auctionier article in Time magazine on April 20, 1962
  28. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 178.
  29. ^ Died, Peter Wilson article in Der Spiegel, June 11, 1984
  30. ↑ Old cars in Der Spiegel from November 3, 1965
  31. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 176.
  32. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 195.
  33. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 197.
  34. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 177.
  35. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 183.
  36. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 187.
  37. ^ Robert Lacey: Sotheby's, The Art of Auctions . P. 179.
  38. ^ Died, Peter Wilson article in Der Spiegel, June 11, 1984
personal data
SURNAME Wilson, Peter Cecil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilson, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English art dealer
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH 3rd June 1984
Place of death Paris