Sotheby’s has cut 100 staff members from its offices in New York, with the majority of cuts including back-office works, junior staffers, and specialists in various departments, the auction house confirmed to ARTnews Wednesday.
In an email statement, a Sotheby’s spokesperson said, “Given the challenges the market has faced this year, we’ve taken a careful look at our business and staffing levels to perform well and grow going forward. We have an exceptionally talented team with outstanding expertise and capabilities across departments and around the world, and we are focused on delivering best-in-class services to our clients.”
Further staff cuts and closures at its international offices seem planned or already in process. When asked about the layoffs, a current employee at Sotheby’s London office responded to ARTnews simply, “Dude, it’s wild.”
Artnet News, which first broke news of the layoffs Tuesday, reported that no official announcement was made by Sotheby’s internally. Puck’s Marion Maneker, who also reported on the cuts Tuesday, wrote that the range of staff cuts included “business development roles to senior specialists in the impressionist and modern departments” as well as “antiquities, Americana, and Japanese art.”
The layoffs come amidst an increasingly fragmented auction market. Sotheby’s recorded a much lower yield for Impressionist, modern and contemporary art at its November marquee sales in New York ($533.1 million) compared to 2023 ($1.2 billion).
Sotheby’s financial situation has been a source of concern for months after approximately 50 staff were cut at the auction house’s London offices in May. In September, a leaked report detailed an 88 percent decline in core earnings and a 25 percent drop in auction sales in the first half of 2024, followed by a Wall Street Journal report which said the auction house had been “pushing off payments” to art shippers and conservators, while reportedly struggling to pay its employees on time. Sotheby’s disputed the claims about employee payments to Artnet News.
In August, meanwhile, Sotheby’s announced an investment of nearly $1 billion from Abu Dhabi’s ADQ sovereign wealth fund; closing the deal in October. Prior to the deal with ADQ, Sotheby’s was solely owned by billionaire telecom magnate Patrick Drahi and had $1.8 billion in debt. As has been widely reported, Drahi’s companies currently have $60 billion in debt, with some loans requiring payment in 2027.
On November 1, Sotheby’s officially completed its purchase of the Breuer building on Madison Avenue in New York, the former home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, for $100 million. Documents from the New York City Department of Finance show the Breuer building was acquired by 945 Madison Avenue LLC through a $35 million mortgage from Barclays Bank and Sotheby’s signed a 15-year lease, set to expire on October 31, 2039.
Sotheby’s real estate holdings also grew this year with the opening of two international locations: a two-story, 24,000-square-foot maison in Hong Kong in July, as well as 10,800 square feet across five floors in Paris.
Puck also reported that staff reductions are taking place at Christie’s, “as often happens around this time of year, but not at the same scale.”
A Christie’s spokesperson refuted this, telling ARTnews, “Christie’s presently has no staffing changes of note planned. Like any business we continue to review our global resourcing needs to ensure we remain adaptable.”
With reporting from George Nelson.
