Mari-Claudia Jiménez, a prominent figure in the international art market, has joined global law firm Withers to launch a new kind of legal–art advisory hybrid. Based in New York, the new practice—Withers Art and Advisory—will provide collectors, estates, and institutions with market advice and legal counsel as it relates to acquiring and holding art.
The new role matches Jiménez’s career path in both the art and legal worlds. Before spending nearly a decade at Sotheby’s—most recently as chairman, president of the Americas, and head of global business development—she was a respected art lawyer.
Withers’s new offering will go beyond traditional art law by integrating real-time market insight with transactional legal expertise. As Jiménez puts it, the goal is to offer “unbiased, ethically principled advice” from someone who understands both how deals are structured and what makes them fall apart.
“There are a lot of so-called advisers out there with no credentials, no transparency, and plenty of conflicts of interest,” Jiménez told ARTnews. “As a barred attorney, I have a duty to the client—and no side hustle in the sale.”
Over the course of her career, Jiménez has handled headline-making deals, including the restitution and sale of five Kazimir Malevich paintings; the $106.5 million sale of Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust. At Sotheby’s, she worked on the recent auction of the Macklowe collection, which collectively brought in a record-total of $922 million, and collections belonging to Emily Fisher Landau, Mo Ostin, Gabriel García Márquez, and the estates of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
The new practice will start with Jiménez and expand from there, with plans to add a team of specialists. It will operate in tandem with Withers’s global art law team, co-led in London by Sarah Barker, and covering everything from tax and IP to litigation and estate planning.
Jimenez is quick to say she won’t be an art adviser who tells clients what to hang above the couch. Instead, she sees this venture as focused on collection sales and management and, more importantly, bringing clarity and credibility to a market often defined by opacity.
“This isn’t just about due diligence,” she said. “It’s about elevating the standards of advice in an industry where that bar has been far too low for far too long.”
