Ex-Chairwoman of Christie’s Asia Joins Lévy Gorvy as Partner

On September 24, Lévy Gorvy announced the appointment of Rebecca Wei as the gallery’s Asia partner, effective October 1. The gallery has also changed its Chinese name to include Wei’s surname.

Wei will work closely with Lévy Gorvy’s Asia president Danqing Li to develop relationships with collectors, artists, and industry specialists to expand the regional market, according to the press release. Speaking of her appointment, the gallery’s co-founders and Wei’s previous colleagues at Christie’s, Dominique Lévy and Brett Gorvy, said that Wei brings a “singular combination of financial experience, expertise in art, and strong relationships in Asia,” and a “global understanding of the market, as well as the respect she has with her Asian clients.”

Wei was at Christie’s Asia for seven years. She joined the auction house in 2012 as its general manager before being promoted to president, and then became chairwoman in 2019. She resigned eight months into her last role. According to a report by SCMP, this was due to her being sidelined from the auction house’s day-to-day operations, which were overseen by the newly appointed Asia president Francis Belin. During her tenure there, Wei helped double Christie’s Asia’s contributions in terms of the house’s global performance, including by setting a world auction record with Amedeo Modigliani’s painting Nu Couché (1917–18) at Christie’s 2015 New York sale. The work was purchased for USD 170 million (HKD 1.31 billion) by Wei’s client Liu Yiqian, a collector and founder of Shanghai’s Long Museum. Since her departure from the auction house, Wei has been serving as a consultant at Harvard University’s Chinese art Media lab. Previously, from 1999 to 2012, she worked at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, after attaining her MBA at Paris’s INSEAD.

Lévy, who used to lead Christie’s private sales department, established her eponymous gallery in 2012, and was later joined in 2017 by Gorvy, who was the auction house’s chairman and international head of the post-war and contemporary art department. The gallery specializes in the secondary market of 20th century and contemporary artists.

Ariana Heffner is an editorial intern of ArtAsiaPacific.

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