Maine Antique Digest May 2015

150 / 245

38-C Maine Antique Digest, May 2015
One day in mid-January a sign maker put up
new signage on the 19th-century carriage
house at 67½ Chestnut Street at the foot
of Beacon Hill where Sotheby’s regional Boston
office had been located for the last 15 years. The
familiar “Sotheby’s” plaque is down now, and the
new signage that went up says “Cottingham Fine
Art.” The auction house has closed up shop in this
city, and that office’s former director, William S.
“Bill” Cottingham, who worked for Sotheby’s for
30 years in both Boston and in New York City,
has taken over the lease for his newly formed
business.
Cottingham described the new venture to
M.A.D. as one designed to “give honest and inde-
pendent counsel to people who want to sell items
or want to buy them.” He said he will be “helping
people get through the labyrinth of decisions that
need to be made,” especially when downsizing.
“Ninety-nine percent of the things one sees are
moderately priced,” he observed. “One percent
are valuable assets. That’s where the real market
is.” Unlike his former employer, however, which
assiduously shuns the middle market, he will help
his clients with everything—i.e., “the one hun-
dred percent, giving them guidance about where
to sell what and how to negotiate the best deal.”
Having seen what he calls “the architecture of deals”
from the inside, Cottingham said, “I know how and
where to push for the client’s benefit. What I can bring
to the table is a very sophisticated understanding on how
best to construct a deal that is uniquely suited to a partic-
ular seller’s advantage.”
It isn’t a clean break for Sotheby’s and Cottingham,
whose other role at the auction house was executive vice
president. At an interview lunch, he proffered two busi-
ness cards. One says “Cottingham Fine Art” printed in a
shade of purple similar to the one used on the new signage.
The other is a Sotheby’s issue that says “Senior Interna-
tional Fine Arts Consultant”—in other words, he will, as
before, be on the lookout for items to send Sotheby’s way.
Cottingham doesn’t see that there will be any conflict
between his dual
roles. “In either
case, I’m working
for the client, giving them objective counsel,” he said.
If Sotheby’s is the right place to send someone with
something to sell, he’ll send the client there. “I’m totally
transparent, and I’m ‘old school.’ I want to interact with
the client the way it used to be done, in a romantic sort
of way”—meaning that there will be ample time and
care expended. “I think there’s still room in this modern
world for that to happen.”
At one point, Cottingham
was head of all Sotheby’s
regional offices in the United
States, of which there are
currently just under a dozen.
The Boston regional office
was the first one established, circa 1978, when Cotting-
ham was still in college at McGill University in Mon-
treal, the city where he was born. According
to Cottingham, the Boston location has always
been one of the most successful for Sotheby’s,
“because New England has traditionally been
a great repository of wonderful things.” Now,
of course, there are fewer and fewer treasures
to be found in those attics—or any attics—
and Sotheby’s, like the entire antiques-mar-
keting world, has had to make significant
adjustments.
The Boston office was not always in that
picturesque carriage house. Initially it was
established in the Back Bay neighborhood,
first on Arlington Street, then on Clarendon
Street, then on Newbury Street. It was Cot-
tingham who found the Beacon Hill space all
those years ago. Its owner—who is now Cot-
tingham’s landlord—is Christopher Lydon,
the well-known National Public Radio per-
sonality. Lydon also owns the building next
door, and that is where he lives. Cottingham
said that Lydon plays the piano in the after-
noon, and the music comes wafting over to the
carriage house. “It’s right out of the nineteenth
century,” Cottingham remarked. “And every
one of my Sotheby’s colleagues who has come
here, to a person, has said, ‘Oh my God!’”
For many years, those colleagues came with
frequency, to give free lectures on their vari-
ous specialties to an audience that enjoyed a
wine and cheese reception afterward. Wen-
dell Garrett, for example, would come once a
year. Lately, however, the lectures have been
curtailed. Now that Cottingham Fine Art has
taken over the space, Cottingham said he’d
like to have lectures again. He also imagines
symposia and exhibitions.
After Cottingham graduated with a degree
in art history in 1979, he went to work for
Waddington’s in Toronto and then ran the
firm’s gallery in New York. While at Wad-
dington’s, he specialized in what he had stud-
ied most closely in college: modern works on
paper. In 1985 he was offered a management
position by Sotheby’s. “I lost my specialty
when I went to work for Sotheby’s but gained
a real breadth of knowledge,” he said.
Among the best pieces Cottingham landed
for Sotheby’s was one he found in his home
city of Montreal. It happened within his first
two years at the auction house. That find
was Gustav Klimt’s 1913 portrait of Eugenia
Primavesi, the wife of a banker and glass manufacturer
in Olmutz, Moravia, now Olomouc, Czech Republic.
The painting was listed by scholars as having been lost
since World War II, but it was still owned by the subject’s
daughter, Mäda Primavesi (1903-2000). (She was given
her mother’s nickname as her first name.) Mäda, who
immigrated to Canada in 1949, remembered watching
her mother’s portrait being painted by Klimt in Vienna.
She was ten years old. Her own portrait was painted by
the artist at about the same time. The family sold her
portrait in the 1930s; it now
hangs in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. The moth-
er’s portrait went to Sothe-
by’s, where it sold in New
York on May 11, 1987, for
$3.85 million (including
buyer’s premium).
The price was a new record at auction for a painting
by the artist. Back then, Japanese were buying as fre-
netically as the Chinese are today. The painting went
to Tokyo. The new auction record for a Klimt is $87.9
million, which was paid by an unidentified buyer for
the 1912 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, when it was
offered at Christie’s in New York on November 8, 2006.
Working for a corporation is “pretty encompassing,”
Cottingham said, choosing his words with care to explain
why he has taken this path for the latter end of his career
instead of staying on with Sotheby’s in a different capac-
ity—an option that had been offered.“I think change is
good, and I think in life you have to step out of your com-
fort zone a bit. I wanted to do it for myself and for my
clients. I feel inspired. I’m ready for another ten or twenty
years of good, hard work.”
Cottingham added that, with this change, he is also
hoping for a better “life-work balance, professionally
and personally.” He is, for example, looking forward
to spending more time in Colorado, where he has had
a residence for a number of years and where his life
partner, Tina Patterson, is based. He also wants to travel
more, and already has, with Patterson, whose company,
Authentic Asia ), designs indi-
vidual travel and luxury private tours to places like Bhu-
tan, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Additionally, Patterson organizes travel for museum
groups. For example, she organized a trip to Vietnam for
a group from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Both she
and Cottingham traveled with that group. Specialized
art trips are in the works to art fairs, such as the Venice
Biennale.
European travel fits into Cottingham’s plan, too,
because he also wants to spend more time there, where
he has a third residence, in London. Indeed, his Cot-
tingham Fine Art business card lists three place names:
“London. Boston. Boulder.” He said he’s considering
hiring someone to run a London office. As it stands now,
his is a one-person operation.
Along with the place names, Cottingham’s family crest
is on the Cottingham Fine Art business card. Beneath the
crest is his family’s motto. The Latin phrase says Mens
cujusque is est quisque— i.e., “As the mind of each, so is
the man.” The motto, which was also the motto of Sam-
uel Pepys and his family, comes from a longer quotation
from Cicero, which translates as, “The mind of each per-
son is that individual, not that physical figure which can
be pointed out with the finger.” Asked to give his inter-
pretation of those words, Cottingham said, “I take them
to mean that the mind is the driver of all, and I believe
that entirely.”
For more information, phone (617) 366-6615 or see
the website ).
Changes Afoot for Sotheby’s Boston Office and for
Its Former Director
by Jeanne Schinto
William S. “Bill” Cottingham. Litwin
Media photo.
Cottingham Fine Art, 67½ Chestnut Street, Boston. Schinto photo.
The online essential to building collections
Thousands of items from period furniture, fine art, Asian art,
estate jewelry, silver, antiquities, militaria, and collectibles.
Dealer inquiries:
- FEATURE -
Antique tiger maple acorn top
bed, queen size, natural finish.
MENDES ANTIQUES
Rt. 44, 52 Blanding Road, Rehoboth, MA 02769
Open daily 9-6, Sunday 12-5
If coming from afar we
advise that you please call in
advance. (508) 336-7381
We carry a general line of
American antique furniture from
the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Specializing in antique four-poster
rope beds in all sizes for over fifty
years. Delivery New England, NY,
NJ, and PA. Shipments anywhere.
“I think change is good,
and I think in life you have
to step out of your comfort
zone a bit.”