What do you do at Bonhams?

I am Head of the Photographs department in New York.

Where are you from and what inspired you to go into the art world? 

I grew up near Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland Museum of Art has always offered free admission to view its permanent collection. While I didn’t study the history of art until I went to college, I began taking myself to the CMA once I could drive. I loved visiting this world of objects from different times and places, where I could discover something eye-opening and fantastic on every trip. A few years later, I was an intern at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.  After spending two months in her sumptuous palazzo festooned with paintings, sculptures, and decorative objects in every nook and cranny, I was hooked.

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What was your first job? 

While completing my graduate coursework at the Institute of Fine Arts, I was a researcher in the Department of Drawings & Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was tasked with cataloging all of the French drawings in the permanent collection. This was the moment in time when museums were transferring their card catalogues and written records into digital databases. I had the privilege of examining thousands of drawings from the likes of Antoine Watteau and Paul Cézanne.

Name one of your triumphs.

In my personal life, my greatest triumph was finishing my dissertation on Andy Warhol’s 1960s self-portraiture, which entailed more than three years of work. I first recognized my interest in photography while I was writing a chapter on Warhol’s photobooth self-portraits, which he made during more than a dozen sessions at a Times Square arcade in the early 1960s.

On the auction front, I feel triumphant whenever I exceed a client’s expectations. Regardless of whether a photograph is priced at $1,000 or $100,000, I take the responsibility of handling it on behalf of its owner very seriously. A seller often has a personal connection to a work they’ve decided to consign; I want to honor their own history with a photograph by giving it the research and care it deserves while I serve as its custodian at Bonhams.

What has changed in the business since you first started?

Over the past 20 years, I’ve observed how each area of the ‘art world’ (museums, non-profit organizations, galleries, auction houses, academic enterprises, and collectors) have become interconnected and interdependent. I’ve worked in all areas of this fascinating universe and understand how each planet needs one another. In the 20th century, there persisted a much more hierarchical and disconnected system of operations among the academic, curatorial, and sales avenues. Today, there is a palpable sense that we are one organism comprised of multiple systems, all contributing to the operation of the whole.

What is your strength as a specialist?

A combination of three points: 1) My broad art historical knowledge informs my nuanced understanding of photographs; 2) My experiences working within every area of the art world have taught me how to communicate effectively with specific audiences; and above all, 3) I have an endless love of physical objects coupled with respect for the artists who created them.

Do you have a hidden talent?

I’m no Mario Buatta or Bunny Williams, but I do love interior decoration. Choosing the right wallpaper for the right space is a particular specialty.

Which work of art has changed your life?

Each time I visited the Cleveland Museum of Art as a teenager, I would spend time with Picasso’s 1901 painting La Vie, which I found incredibly mesmerizing and enigmatic. At that point in my life, I did not know anything about Picasso’s Blue Period, but the melancholic aura of this canvas kept me returning to it again and again. My long-ranging conversation with La Vie taught me that art can harness our attention and keep us engaged in a meandering, satisfying discussion that can last a lifetime.

Kelly Sidley is the head of the Photographs department in New York. She can be reached at Kelly.Sidley@Bonhams.com

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