Each fall and spring—the prime seasons for auctioning off your Basquiat—art lovers flock to auction houses to gawk at the gladiatorial showdown that is billionaires bidding on art. Refereeing this blood sport is an elite group of auctioneers who make the boring business of settling on a price feel like high drama, and few can rival the panache of Oliver Barker, the debonair 53-year-old principal auctioneer at Sotheby’s.
Barker ranks as one of the art industry’s most prominent and well-respected auctioneers. “Among the very greats living and working right now,” the art-world veteran Amy Cappellazzo told me. Some sellers insist on having him at the rostrum as a condition of turning over their goods to Sotheby’s, which, amid a broader art-sale slump, has been dogged by reports of financial troubles. Barker regularly headlines the most prestigious sales at the auction house, where he has sold everything from a self-shredding Banksy painting to David Bowie’s art collection—some $20 billion worth of art in all.
