[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2215767818-e1779910158495.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tLast week, as much of the art world was focused on the marquee sales in New York, Christie\u2019s announced a major change to its leadership in London. The auction house appointed Fran\u00e7ois-Henri Pinault as board chairman and non-executive director.<\/p>\n
\n\tPinault is the son of French billionaire Fran\u00e7ois Pinault and the president of Groupe Art\u00e9mis, the long-time parent company of Christie\u2019s. Art\u00e9mis is also the parent company of the Pinault Collection, the 10,000-work collection of the Pinault family, as well as several private museums: the Bourse de Commerce in Paris and the\u00a0Palazzo Grassi\u00a0and Punta della Dogana in Venice.<\/p>\n
\n\tFran\u00e7ois-Henri Pinault is known for turning the elder Pinault\u2019s Pinault-Printemps-Redoute into the luxury giant Kering, which owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga, among other brands.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe elder Pinault purchased Christie\u2019s in 1998 for $1.2 billion; he remains honorary chair at the company. Since 2023, the board chairman role has been held by Guillaume Cerutti,\u00a0who served as CEO of the auction house from 2017 to 2025. After stepping down as CEO, Cerutti continued as board chairman, as well as president of the Pinault Collection. Earlier this year, Cerutti left his position at the collection. Fran\u00e7ois Pinault is now listed as president of the collection. <\/p>\n
\n\tChristie\u2019s did not note Cerutti\u2019s departure in its press release, nor has the former CEO, who is an active poster on various topics on LinkedIn. Cerutti\u2019s LinkedIn profile lists his tenure as Christie\u2019s chairman ending last month.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a statement, Fran\u00e7ois-Henri Pinault said,\u00a0\u201cIt is a privilege to assume the role as Chairman of the Board of Christie\u2019s.\u00a0Our family\u2019s long-standing association with this remarkable business has been a source of immense pride, and we look to the future with great enthusiasm. We remain deeply committed to preserving and continually strengthening the company\u2019s core expertise: connecting exceptional art and objects with a global audience through passionate scholarship, connoisseurship, and expertise, while continuing to innovate and expand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOne has to wonder what Shakespearean drama is playing out behind the scenes to lead to Cerutti\u2019s ouster from all things Pinault.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/christies-francois-henri-pinault-chairman-1234787604\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2215767818-e1779910158495.jpg?w=1024″] Last week, as much of the art world was focused on the marquee sales in New York, Christie\u2019s announced a major change to its leadership in London. The auction house appointed Fran\u00e7ois-Henri Pinault as board chairman and non-executive director. Pinault is the son of French billionaire Fran\u00e7ois Pinault and the president of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1959506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1959506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1959506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1959506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1959506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}