independent

unparalleled expertise

&

advocacy

Art Market Advisor’s experience of the inner workings of the global art market, in negotiating financial arrangements for our clients and our hands-on guidance of the selling process, gives us a unique skill set unparalleled in the art world.   

The firm offers powerful advocacy in complex financial negotiations, customized marketing plans and oversight of both public and private sales.  

As we are unconstrained by allegiances to any one auction house or organization, we are dedicated to providing objective advice on selling works of art and jewelry, and to navigating the complexities of the global art market.

Unlike an art advisor, we work exclusively as business advisors to private clients, attorneys, financial advisors, fiduciaries, beneficiaries, and non-profit organizations seeking to maximize the sale of a bespoke collection, an entire estate or a single item.

The firm brings together well over 100 years of complementary experience working in the global art market to assist in the following areas:

• Soliciting proposals and valuations for sale. 

• Negotiating the economic terms of transactions.

• Developing presentation and marketing strategies.

• Reviewing and advising on contracts.

• Leveraging oversight and advocacy throughout the consignment or sale process.

• Creating strategies and thoughtful solutions to clients who encounter issues with ongoing consignments.

• Working with family offices or advisors for all art and tangible personal property matters.

Our team is able to be objective without being conflicted by any financial interests other than maximizing the financial outcome for clients.  We have no appraisal interests, inventories or other motives and therefore can provide clients with the best advice and results.

Deborah Schmidt Robinson

Deb Robinson has 30 years of experience in the international art market. After starting her own boutique art and estate consulting firm, Lioness Art Partners, she joined her former colleagues as a partner at Art Market Advisors in 2019.

Ms. Robinson began her career at Sotheby’s in 1989 where she worked in New York and Chicago in various executive and management roles as a key contact for Trust & Estate professionals.  Her entire career at the firm was focused on working closely with clients and their advisors on often high-profile consignments, acting as their advocate and internal partner at the firm. When she left the auction house after 26 years to devote herself exclusively to the best interests of her clients, she was Senior Vice President, Executive Director of Trusts & Estates.

Over the course of her career, she has been instrumental in the sale of property from numerous significant estates and collections, including those of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the Zilkha Collection, The Collection of Joan Didion, The Wolf Family Collection: The Spirit of America, Ivan & Genevieve Reitman: A Life in Pictures, Brooke Astor, The Blair Family Collection and the Guennol Lioness.

In addition to several art and historical related board positions, including the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, the Board of Trustees of the Greenwich Historical Society, and the Professsional Advisory Council of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mrs. Robinson has also been the auction consultant for special projects to the United Nations. 

Warren P. Weitman, JR.

Prior to founding Art Market Advisors in 2016, Warren was Chairman of the Americas of Sotheby’s since 2000.  He spearheaded and secured many of the major consignments and record setting sales for the auction house during his nearly 40-year tenure at the firm.

Warren joined Sotheby’s in 1978 to work directly with the Trust & Estate community and in 1980 he created Sotheby’s Appraisal Company. In the mid-eighties, he was appointed Director of Business Development worldwide and directed Sotheby’s regional network in the Americas. 

In recent years, Warren oversaw sales for the Private Collection of Jayne Wrightsman, the Stafford Collection, and the Ford House Cezanne.

Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in a number of individual record setting sales including the world-record painting at the time, Van Gogh’s Irises, in 1987 for $53.4 million from the Collection of Joan Whitney Payson; the first-ever work sold at auction for more than $100 million, Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe on behalf of the Greentree Foundation in 2004; and the world-record for American Art, Rockwell’s Saying Grace, which sold for $46.1 million in 2013, as well as the world record for a Antiquity when the Guennol Lioness sold for $57 million in 2007. 

Mitchell Zuckerman

Mitch pioneered modern art finance and has structured well over $5 billion of art transactions and loans over the course of his career for a variety of high net worth clients.

His background in the industry started in 1974 when he was assigned to the Sotheby’s account by the law firm he joined after graduating from Columbia Law School.  He became Sotheby’s US General Counsel in 1979.  He moved on to other management assignments and beginning 1984 he structured, negotiated, and closed many of Sotheby’s major transactions until he left Sotheby’s to start Art Market Advisors in 2016.

As the creator of Sotheby’s Financial Services in 1988, he established Sotheby’s secured lending business and closed several billion dollars in art loans in jurisdictions around the world.  He also developed a unique vehicle to assist art collectors called “reverse mortgages” on works of art. 

Beginning in 1995, he managed Sotheby’s guarantee business globally.  In that capacity, he created risk sharing devices such as the irrevocable bid, and he innovated merchant banking services for art dealers and collectors who discovered purchase opportunities but lacked sufficient liquidity to take advantage of them.

Ghostbusters Firehouse, before the Reitman Collection Auction

Contact

We welcome your inquiries by email or phone

Deborah Schmidt Robinson
+1 917.797.5607
deb.robinson@artadvs.com

Warren P. Weitman, Jr.
+1 646.824.0333
warren.weitman@artadvs.com

Mitchell Zuckerman
+1 917.224.1056
mitchell.zuckerman@artadvs.com