William O’Reilly, President of Argonaut Fine Art Ltd., has been active in the international art market for more than 25 years. In that time he has gained extensive experience acting for clients at the highest level in sourcing and selling paintings, sculpture and works on paper from the Renaissance to today.
William joined Christie’s London as a graduate trainee in 1998, and in the following year moved into the Old Master Drawings Department at King Street as a junior specialist. Rising through the ranks, he ran sales in London, Paris, Amsterdam and New York, and worked with collectors, curators and other professionals around the world. He became Head of Department in 2005.
During his time in ‘OMD’, William was privileged to work with masterpieces such as Michelangelo’s Risen Christ from the collection of Sir Brinsley Ford, Leonardo da Vinci’s Horse and Rider from the collection of J. Carter Brown, for some years the joint world record holders for an Old Master Drawing, and the exciting rediscovery of Andrea del Sarto’s Head of St Joseph, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum.
An auctioneer since 2002, William has brought down his hammer on many notable sales including the storied collection of Paul Oppé, the first sale at Christie’s King Street to offer internet bidding, 240 years to the day after James Christie’s first auction. That sale included Goya’s bewitching drawing El Toro Mariposa, now in the Prado, Madrid, which set a new auction record for the artist.
In 2012 William joined Bonhams in London as Head of Impressionist and Modern Art, working with an exceptional team to build the newest and nimblest department in a cutthroat field. In 2013 William moved permanently to New York, as Head of Americas and Asia, with responsibility for establishing a distinctive and appealing alternative in a crowded marketplace. Among many highlights was the rediscovery of Henri Matisse’s Arbre de Neige, one of the artist’s late, great cutouts which had long been thought lost.
In 2018 William took the opportunity to combine his Old Master and Modern experience by joining Dickinson, the leading international dealer with galleries in London and New York, as a Senior Director. Moving to the ‘trade’ allowed William to offer another perspective to a growing international community of clients, presenting paintings, works on paper and sculpture from six centuries both privately and at major art fairs in Europe and the US. With Dickinson, William was able to assist clients in offering or acquiring works as varied as a 15th Century Italian drawing and a Sheila Hicks Prayer Rug, paintings by masters of the Western canon such as Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and Jean Dubuffet, and standard bearers such Lygia Clark, Carmen Herrera and Fanny Sanín. Fame is of course not always a guide to quality, and William has also enjoyed working with clients on exceptional works by less well-known or even unknown artists.
William is a governor of the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, an institution about which he is passionate. Hill-Stead is one of the most perfect small collections of Impressionist Art in the world. While that might sound hyperbolic, the cast list supports it: not one but two Monet Haystacks (bought “wet”), a ballet painting, a racing scene and a bather pastel by Degas, together with key works by Manet and Cassatt. The collection was largely bought in Paris in the 1880s and 90s by Cleveland industrialist Alfred Atmore Pope (1842 – 1913). It is presented to this day in the mansion built for him in the Connecticut countryside by his daughter Theodate, pioneering architect, suffragist and philanthropist, who left the house and its contents in trust. None of the works can be loaned, which ensures their excellent condition and continuing power.
William read Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies with Arabic at Cambridge University. Prior to joining Christie’s he had been a Research Scholar at the University of Aleppo, Syria, and a student intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy. He holds a graduate certificate in the History of Art from Christie’s Education.