Wendy Battleson

PARTNER

Wendy Battleson provides legal and transactional art advisory services to families, their family offices and related entities. Prior to co-founding the firm, Wendy spent nearly a decade as a senior executive at Christie’s both in the General Counsel’s office and as the Head of Global Art Transactions and Art Finance and was based in New York, London and Hong Kong. While at Christie’s, Wendy was responsible for structuring and executing approximately $3 billion of annual global art transactions, including all legal matters, guarantees, third party backing off of risk, advances, loans and principal trading of art. Prior to Christie’s, Wendy was a member of the executive team at Cendant Corporation during its spin-off and subsequent IPO. She was also Managing Director and General Counsel of RE/MAX and was based in Zurich for seven years.

Wendy regularly speaks on art related topics such as financings, guarantees, advances, auction default swaps and the art market, generally, and has been a visiting faculty member in Art, Business and Law at Christie’s Education, as well as a faculty member of the New York State Bar Association. She has an honors degree in Political Science and Economics from James Madison University and a law degree from George Mason University School of Law, along with bar memberships in New York, New Jersey and Virginia.

Presentations and Publications

Speaker, “Art as an Asset,” Academy of Certified Portfolio Managers, Orlando, Florida, September 2019

Interview, “New Thinking is Needed as the Gloss Drips off of the Art Market,” The Financial Times, London, May 2019

Speaker, “Disrupting the Art Market: What is the Future of the Auction Business,” Grant’s Interest Rate Observer Semi-Annual Conference, New York, April 2019

PodCast Interview, “The Art Market and Finance,” Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, New York, November 2018

Interview, “Art of the Deal,” Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, New York, September 2018

Keynote Speaker, “How the Art World Really Operates,” LUXEMagazine, Sandow Media, San Francisco, October 2016

Keynote Speaker, “The Art Market Behind the Glamour,” LUXE Magazine, Sandow Media and Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, July 2016

Keynote Speaker, “The Global Art Market and How to Navigate this Opaque World,” 12th Annual Estate Planning Institute, New York, March 2016

Keynote Speaker, “The Secrets to Navigating the Art Market for Family Offices,” International Wealth Advisors Forum, Cascais, March 2015