Joseph Duveen’s approach to art dealing was famously simple: “Europe has a great deal of art, and America has a great deal of money.” Beginning in the late 1800s, Duveen bought thousands of artworks from declining European aristocrats and sold them to wealthy industrialists in the United States. Today, many of these pieces form the bedrock of American museum collections, while his methods – by turns ingenious, theatrical, and frankly unscrupulous – still echo through the art market a century on.

We are pleased to share that our partner Tobias Czudej has been admitted as a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS) through the Senior Professional Assessment.

RICS is one of the oldest chartered bodies in the valuation profession, granted its Royal Charter in 1881 with a mandate to act in the public interest. The designation reflects international standards of practice and complements Tobias’s existing credentials with the Appraisers Association of America, where he serves on the Board of Directors.

The MRICS designation strengthens Czudej McDonough’s capacity to serve European clients and to advise on cross-border estate and valuation matters.

According to Eugene Schwartz, “Collecting is the only socially commendable form of greed.” The advertising copywriter known as “Gene,” and his wife, Barbara, an artistically-inclined interior designer, were at the forefront of a small but mighty group of New York collectors in the late-20th century.

Partner Susan McDonough, AAA, has been accredited by the Appraisers Association of America in the category of Latin American Art. The recognition reflects Susan's experience appraising works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Fernando Botero, Wifredo Lam, Gabriel Orozco, and many other artists working across the region. The accreditation marks a full-circle moment in Susan's career, which began with a joint degree in Art History and Latin American Studies at Columbia University and an internship at the pioneering Latin American art gallery CDS, followed by work on the 1993 landmark exhibition Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century at MoMA.

In a rare 2011 interview, Barbara Gladstone described the similarities between being an art dealer and raising a family. “Being a parent, a mother, means that you’re responsible for helping someone develop to the best of their potential,” she said. “The artist–gallery relationship also involves a dependency on the part of the artist to trust the person who represents this most precious thing, the art. And that’s not something to take lightly.” Gladstone, who died in 2024 at age of 89, was speaking from personal experience; She shepherded the careers and developed long-lasting relationships with an international roster of big-name artists including Matthew Barney, Shirin Neshat, Anish Kapoor, and Carroll Dunham.

Richard and Elizabeth “Betty” Hedreen began collecting art for practical reasons: to fill the walls of their new home. “We started out looking for paintings that reflected the Seattle region, made by artists who were from around here,” Richard said. “We wanted works that would connect our home to the area [such as] William Ivey and Guy Anderson.”