Q&A with art advisor Lisa Schiff, founder of SFA Advisory: “My education was 100% based entirely on a white male perspective.”

Lisa Schiff, the founder of SFA Advisory in New York, and one of the world’s most important contemporary and modern art advisors, tells us about what she has learnt from her clients, her tips for first-time art buyers, and where she thinks the art industry is heading.

You’re one of the most sought-after art advisors, having worked with high-profile clientele such as Leonardo DiCaprio. What have you learnt from your clients?

The most significant revelation was to understand that a confident collector, which is hard to come by, has the power to define the value of an artwork. One lightbulb experience was witnessing a major collector, maybe one of the very best, pursuing a certain Warhol disaster series painting at a seemingly high number. This confident collector wanted this particular painting at a premium and he probably would have paid more. He understood the superiority of this screen, its provenance, its historical importance and more. The confident collector acted on aesthetic and critical value which he understood was intrinsically connected to investment value and didn’t allow a fetishized view of investment value to decide for him.

Have you been involved in many sales this year, and can you tell us about some of the artists you have worked with?

There haven’t been a lot of sales so far this year. It’s been super slow. Some of this is random and depends on where collectors are at in their own buying cycles. And some of this is the overall socio/political/economic state of the world and the mood that puts people in. Some of my favourite sales so far for this year have been Katharina Grosse, Clare Rojas, Adrian Berg, Andreas Erikkson, Horst P. Horst, Sean Landers, Ragna Bley, Dewey Crumpler, Hadi Fallahpisheh, Sebastian Silva, Lauren Halsey, Joan Mitchell, and Nicole Wittenberg. You can see we are a bit all over the place because our clients are all so very different.

What do you enjoy most about working in art advising? Why is this your greatest passion?

Teaching new collectors – educating them. I worked on my doctorate at the Graduate Center here in New York and worked as a Graduate Teaching Fellow oh so long ago now. I love teaching. And I love learning. I am constantly doing both. My clients are constantly teaching me too and I am regularly humbled. I don’t know everything about art because my education was 100% based entirely on a white male perspective. There aren’t even new history books ready to cover all that is being recovered. I have to keep learning and revising.