NEW YORK, NY.- Christie's announced the appointment of Josh Benesh as Global Head of Christie's Pop Culture at Christie's, based in New York. Benesh will lead an international team of specialists and work closely with clients and collectors across categories to drive the auction house's growth and expansion across new and emerging markets in the Christie's Pop Culture vertical.
The Christie's pop culture team will hold multiple annual auctions celebrating the iconic objects, personas, and achievements that define our collective culture. Its sales will span and celebrate such diverse areas of collecting as:
• Film, television and theatrical entertainment
• Music and musical instruments
• Sports memorabilia
• Science, technology, and natural history
• Fashion and popular design.
“We are excited to meet our client's passions with our unmatched legacy of storytelling and innovation, with the opportunities to collect the very best objects from our collective popular culture still available. As much as these are new collecting areas for the Christie's client community, our approach is very much the continuation of a 260-year tradition that is specialist-driven, adaptive to an increasingly international marketplace, and focused wholly on the opportunity to unite our client's passions with incomparable object opportunities,” said Benesh.
With significant past sales in this area—including the collections of Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Elton John, Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour, and George Michael—Christie's is well-positioned to grow and elevate these categories and provide new opportunities for Christie's to engage with both existing and new clients.
Just this year, Christie's offered the Collection of Jim Irsay, which set the record for the largest memorabilia auction in history at over $105 million, nearly doubling the high estimate and shattering a number of auction records, including most expensive guitar at auction for David Gilmour's Black Strat. Christie's also just sold the collection of Johnny Marr in London for nearly 4 million pounds and welcomed stars Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt to its New York salesroom for a charity auction of memorabilia from the film The Devil Wears Prada 2 that generated $400,000.
Benesh is a leader in the auction marketplace with extensive experience in new category development, first joining Christie's as a consultant earlier this year. Describing himself as an incurable collector across far too many categories, he developed his passion for the auction world at age 12 buying and selling Disney animation art and memorabilia. Prior to joining Christie's, Benesh spent the last five years as Chief Strategy Officer and General Counsel at Heritage Auctions. Benesh began his career as an attorney with Munger, Tolles, and Olson in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, holds a Master's of Science from the University of Oxford and an undergraduate degree from Rollins College .
“Josh is a true expert in the fast-moving world of pop culture memorabilia, and his collaborative approach, strategic insight, and understanding of the opportunities ahead have already made a meaningful impact on Christie's,” said Julien Pradels, President, Christie's Americas. “We see great potential in this market, which has matured and should be treated with the same standards of excellence and expertise that Christie's applies to all of our categories and sales. There is no better person to lead those efforts than Josh.”
