At the New York preview for Christie’s Contemporary Evening Sale in May 1999, Louise Lawler made a photograph of a ghostly male figure with his hands behind his back, in front of Robert Gober’s Crib (1986) and Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still #48 (1979).
She titled the photo, It could be Anthony d’Offay, wrapping the presence of one of the 20th century art market’s most recognizable and powerful figures with a bit of ambiguity.
1999 turns out to be the period of time when two different women who worked for d’Offay’s gallery in London said he subjected them to repeated, unwanted sexual advances and abuse.
One woman, then 25 and hired in 1998 as d’Offay’s assistant, who received an undisclosed settlement after leaving the gallery in 2000, described her experience on what could even have been the trip photographed by Lawler:
“He started taking me for meetings and appointments outside the gallery. He would hold on to my arm or put his arm around me. I thought it was not quite right, but dared not voice my discomfort,” she said. Her concerns deepened when he informed her that he would like her to accompany him to New York. “That’s when things escalated. He grew more touchy, and would put his hand around my waist, very close to my bum. There was no sense of boundary in respect to personal space.”
This quote, the report of these two women, plus another who complained of sex pestery and professional coercion and retaliation by d’Offay in 2004, were first made public in 2018 by The Guardian. D’Offay denied the accusations.
2018 was when Trevor Traina, the collector who purchased ed. 3/5 of Lawler’s photo, began serving as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Austria. Traina’s grandfather had also been an ambassador to Austria, in the Eisenhower era. His mother Dede Wilsey, a noted San Francisco socialite and longtime Republican donor, famously took control of the deYoung and Fine Arts Museum in 2011, after the director’s death. Traina’s Lawler was exhibited at the FAMSF in 2012, in a show titled, Reel to Reel: Photographs from the Trevor Traina Collection.
Next week Traina is selling 132 works from his collection, including the Lawler, in a single owner sale at Christie’s. “As part of an exciting and innovative partnership,” Christie’s effused, “all lots from this auction will be presented on the blockchain and offered with an associated digital certificate of ownership exclusively included with a Kresus wallet.” Traina is the founder and CEO of Kresus.
Part of the genius of Lawler’s work stems from her sensitivity art’s context, and her ability to capture fleeting moments as it moves through the world. I think it’s hard to imagine another Lawler photo—or another example of this one—accruing as much 21st century history has this one has, even before it got put on the blockchain.