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Chamli Art Services honors memory of friend and Fine Arts Director at Moran Auctioneers.
- Christopher Vincenz
- Jan 2
- 11 min read
Updated: Jan 2
In memory of Jennifer Wilson.
Jennifer Wilson 1985-2024
There have only been four guys in my lifetime to which I can remember being intimidated by and Jennifer Wilson was one of them! Jenny carried herself with a swagger and maintained an air of rampant confidence, uncharacteristic of an industry which tends to be dominated by women, particularly ladies of a certain gentile; this trait helped her not only thrive but dominate in the secondary art scene of the west coast and California.
She had just turned 39 years old in August. She was excited to have recently been featured, and heavily quoted in, an article for Auction Daily News titled Doyle Lane’s ceramics crackle, bubble, and drip by Andrea Valluzzo and was thrilled to share that news on her social media accounts. She was excelling in her professional life and looking to make the next big step in her career, when the young Fine Art Director from Moran Auctioneers passed into the Lord’s hands suddenly and unexpectedly . My good friend Jennifer Wilson leaves behind her young son Henry, a loving family , an endeavorable mark on the west coast auction industry and a huge hole in the art and appraisal world. It has now been three months and I am still without words, but have felt for some time now that I needed to eulogize her and preserve her memory in writing. Her professional bios on www.moranauctioneers.com go on to accurately portray her as:
“A seasoned professional and veteran of the art industry. Proactive and detail-oriented with over a decade of progressive experience in Fine Art Auctions”, as well as noting that she maintained a "consistent track record of business-getting across all auction house categories, and is proud to have handled the sale of both major private and public collections over her tenure in the auction field”.
Her personally maintained bio on www.linkedin.com promotes some of her proudest professional accomplishments:
She holds numerous World Auction Records and notable sales including works by Barry (Twist) McGee, Richard Diebenkorn, Jean Michel Basquiat, Banksy, and others. Jennifer has sold works from many prominent Estates, Institutions, and Collections such as the Ruttenberg Collection (Chicago, IL), the Art Institute of Chicago, the Oakland Museum of California, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum (New York, NY) and the Honolulu Museum of Art. Jennifer also has experience working with Major Contemporary Galleries in NYC, Franklin Bowles Galleries in San Francisco, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
While all of this success is certainly true, I have been blessed to witness first hand the personal side of Jenny, and fully understand the person she really was to be able to achieve those lofty records. In the ten or so years we’ve been professionally associated I came to admire her grit, determination, a “never-say-never” demeanor all rolled up in a iron clad confidence, and sprinkled with a pinch of laissez fair candor for good measure; it was what I called her “Swagger” and after getting used to it, I stopped being intimidated and began to cheer in awe. Jenny always had a smile on her face even in times of distress. Her smile was one of her greatest tools; it could soften a tense situation or conceal either a silver or forked-tongue . Never one to be trampled over or dominated, Jenny was always the loudest in the room. She was crass and bold but she always had the softness and expert knowledge to succeed at the task ahead of her.
“Well Joe Can Suck my D!#K”
Yes, that is a direct quote and a typical phrase Jenny would fire off nonchalantly. Replace poor Joe with any subject causing mild annoyance, grief or otherwise, and more often than not, a barrier to a goal she had set for herself.; Jenny did not put up with bullshit, she was good at what she did and she knew it. It was her nature to get right to the point, any small chat was wasted time. It may be crass to say and tough on some ears but she operated the way a man would, especially a man bound for the executive office. I met Jenny on her first day coming to work at Clars Auction Gallery in Oakland, CA., A small, single location, family-owned auction house known for quantity and for having monthly sales, including the rarely-heard-of-in-the-internet-age “In person only” live sales for local bidders only. Knowing a new gal was about to start and seeing someone who fit the bill and heading my way that morning as I was set to start my day at the office I held the door and kindly asked “You must be the new person?”, without missing a beat, and pushing past me with indifference, she coldly replied “Is it that obvious?”
Needless to say, she and I bumped heads a few times, but I was always impressed and often in awe of how she performed professionally. Dealing with a client’s indecisiveness is a normal part of the job when precious heirlooms are going to auction, or investments are being contemplated in real time; It is something all of us in the industry find ways to handle when presented by the client, but Jenny had little patience for. I once heard Jenny loudly exclaim with certain irritation, to a client on the phone mid-auction while phone bidding (representing an anonymous buyer on the auction floor by phone) on a particular Salvador Dali lithograph:
“The guy used to walk an aardvark through the streets of Paris on a leash, how am I supposed to know what in the Hell he was thinking?!?
The absurdity of the comment stopped the auctioneer and hushed the room before an amused chuckle simmered amongst the crowd. It was understood by all that Jenny was not interested in trying to sell the client on the piece which was seconds away from hammering on the block. That moment was gone and now was time for bidding; successfully winning auction lots for her clients was a goal with absolutely no return for her, but her competitive nature would propel her to be the loudest most visible bidder in the room. Needless to say, she got that client to focus and was successful in winning the Dali. A quick congratulations and a brief “goodbye” and she would hang up; no time to waste before making the next call for a client wanting to bid on a sketching a few lots away.
This competition was infectious. Because of her role and abilities Jenny was usually tasked with landing some of the biggest and most prized estates and consignments, and would often come back to the office excited to share the news of what they had, or how many items and the sort, but she would never reveal to those who did not need to know what terms or appraisal valuation she was going to offer in proposal. She did not want to jinx it. It was usually hard fought; it was a treat when our small auction house was competing with gigantic names like Christies or Sotherbys, but Jenny was realistic and never let the pressure sway her into uncertain waters. I never saw Jenny fail!! That is to say, while it was not uncommon during those big proposals to see her return to the office frustrated and verbally irritated at a client for their unwavering resolve to go with the well known houses and their proposals, Jenny always seemed to prevail. Obviously she was unable to convince them to come be a big fish in our little pond when the big houses could give them the ocean, but with such a wealth of water it is so easy to promise waves that may never crash. Jenny would not leave it there; as our industry goes, it’s obvious and easy to monitor the results of anything going for sale, she would relish in the hammer prices of certain estates months later and would gleefully take her victory when the now realized price of a particular piece or the entire estate would hammer at the exact valuation she placed on it, but was dismissed by the client; then she would beam with deserved cockiness as she would stand at the auction block of our dimly lit drafty warehouse of a “gallery” and drop the gavel on a new auction record for those clients of hers who did see the potential Jenny was selling them. Jenny never failed.
Just like herself, Jenny appreciated the gritty, underdog mentality which resonated throughout the East Bay of California and the resurgence of an art renaissance that was exploding around us in the old downtrodden post war era warehouses of west Oakland. I once asked Jenny why she chose to live in such a potentially dangerous place and even raise a family there, when so many of our colleagues and clients resided in the established circles and art communities of San Francisco or lofty Marin County. She would just cuss and brush it off with a few disparaging words and claim that the old money did not know where art was going, or better yet coming from. Like the Persian impressionists and beatniks before her or the avant-garde pop art movement icons of midcentury New York, Jenny always wanted to be where the action was. She loved Oakland and therefore believed in what we were doing in that drafty little auction house on Telegraph avenue. She was happy to be making history there and worked tirelessly to compete with the big houses across the bay area, California and in L.A.
In the five plus years we both worked at Clars, we saw it grow in prominence, to become relevant not only within the west coast auction scene but on a national level industry wide. Partnering regionally with Christies and expanding our horizons, that small auction house started to bring in consignment from as far away as the pacific northwest, Los Angeles and even from large estates from well known names in the American banking industry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I can honestly say, without a doubt Jennifer Wilson was a principal component in that growth. Now only a few years later and under a new management group, Clars has a few satellite locations and is arguably the leader in full service mid level auction houses in northern California.
“Because I Trust You”
Jenny and I both went separate ways and for a while we lost contact with each other. In fact I never really assumed, after leaving Clars, that I would even return to the art and appraisal community, so it was with only vague understanding on my end that she ended up at another Family owned, single location, though slightly more “recognized” auction house of Moran Auctions in Southern California, though she still continued to live in her beloved East bay home and community, choosing instead to remote in to work Through LinkedIn and elsewhere I saw she had quickly risen to the role of Director despite her work arrangement; This was not a surprise to me given Jenny's ethics and tenacity. When I reached out to her professionally, introducing the idea of Chamli Art Services, it was beyond refreshing to hear her immediate support! “ Heck yeah, this industry needs more people of high standards like you handling art!!” she stated. “In fact I got stuff right now in Kansas I would love for you to collect!” and just like that Jenny at Moran was my biggest client. She would often call me after leaving a client's home “You gotta come get this, I don’t trust anyone else to handle this, it's going to be huge, the client probably has two million just in art! When can you get to California?”
Anyone that knows Chamli Art Services will tell you that I only planned to operate in the Rocky Mountain West, and that I had no interest in serving the west coast and particularly California. But Jenny kept calling and kept offering me jobs. I told her that I would probably be more expensive because of my remoteness and cost of travel to the collection, or to get it to Moran on an exclusive route. When I asked her why she kept calling me exclusively and not shopping the job out to others she calmly replied:
“Because in the art world it is hard to find someone you can truly trust, and I trust you”
The Call from Moran
It was a warm afternoon in late September and I was pre-fabricating crates on my driveway for a couple life-sized, fired clay sculptures a client had ordered for a move from Salt Lake City, when the fateful call came in from Los Angeles. It was Moran Auctions but when I answered I was surprised it was not Jenny, but rather their senior Vice president Morgana Blackwelder with the terrible news. She had known we were working closely together and were old colleagues and friends and felt it was important to give me the news. I don’t know where I was on the list of persons called, I didn’t ask many questions, but I felt I was fairly high on the list of people called based on the tone in Ms. Blackwelder’s voice. She was obviously also at a loss and knowing the amount of people who Jenny worked with I did not envy the task she had ahead of her; I wondered briefly if it was a team of people making such calls. I would know each of them from the Moran senior team, and my heart sank lower at thought of it. I had a lot of fleeting thoughts all at once, but otherwise I don’t remember much more of that day. I obviously finished building the crates, but presumably on auto-pilot. I was stunned, I couldn’t believe what I just heard; I know I went into denial, mostly at whether I had truly understood exactly what was just told to me. In the hours and days that followed I made a few phone calls to mutual friends and old co-workers that I was certain probably did not get the news and all the while I kept thinking to myself: this is going to get back to Jenny and at any minute she will call my phone and furiously scold me with questions of:
“Why the Hell are you telling everyone I F@*king Died?!!?
Still to this day, it is hard for me to believe Jenny is not with us, she was a bright star that burnt fast. She was only getting started and had so much more to do in the arts and gallery management community . One of the last conversations she and I had was about her future plans to branch away from the auction industry and start her own art advisory or consultation business. She mentioned how she was proud of me for creating something of my own and she was eager to do the same. I assured her it would be a success, that she had everything she needed as long as she had a strong professional reputation and someone she could trust. I told her she could always count on me and that I would be happy to assist when that time finally came. The last three months have been the hardest thinking of her young son and the idea that all those dreams, and the people those dreams would affect have been lost. In that time I have decided to dedicate the continued efforts of growing Chamli Art Services to the memory of Jenny.
Cantor Arts Center
I contacted Jenny’s mother and expressed my condolences and asked if there was a way to give back or send a gift in lieu of flowers or heartfelt expressions of sympathy. She agreed that Jenny loved art more than anything and would often visit the Cantor Arts CEnter on the Stanford University Campus, often taking her young son, Hank, to experience the exhibits as well. She mentioned that a few other friends and family members were making donations to the center on Jenny’s behalf:
I asked strongly that my gift in Jenny’s name be used to provide the under-served and under-represented communities of the Bay Area opportunities in Arts education and appreciation. I know this would be how Jenny would want the money used. She lived her life trying to be a representative to art communities not normally represented, or bring great art to the masses. For Jenny Art was not meant to be kept away in dimly lit rooms of ivory towers; like her it was messy and contradictory and a true expression of talent and belonged to the world community to share and exchange. We all lost a true and rare piece of art that September day, I will never forget my good friend and colleague. I will try to live each day as fiercely and determined as she was, especially on days when it looks like things with Chamli Art Services are not going as planned. I pray that her family and loved ones find peace and that her young son grows up knowing that his mother was one of the great ones, someone who lit up a room with her smile before eventually taking charge and getting down to business.
I hope he grows to have his mother's Swagger.
Chamli Art Services honors the Director of Fine Arts at Moran Auctioneers