The business of art in the Gulf and the Middle East is more lucrative than ever as an influx of wealth into the region spurs interest in the sector, carving out space for a market that was previously untapped by global art galleries and consultancies. Auction houses, galleries, and even renowned art and design fairs like Design Miami and Art Basel are now increasingly setting their eyes on the region.

The region’s art market has gotten a boost from Gulf sovereign wealth funds and governments as they look to diversify their economies away from oil. Look, for example, at transactions like ADQ’s USD 1 bn acquisition of a minority stake in global auction house Sotheby’s in 2024, which saw Sotheby’s commit to opening a branch in Abu Dhabi.

Among those looking to capture the wave? Adam Baldwin, founder and CEO of Baldwin Contemporary and Baldwin Fine Art Acquisitions.

Adam is the subject this week of our My Morning Routine column. Every Friday, we look at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and use the interview as a chance to dive deeper into their industry and their business. This week, we spoke with Baldwin about how he built the business, what drew him to Dubai, and how he manages a (famously personal) business that spans two continents. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

Enterprise: Let’s start with the basics: What is the business?

Adam Baldwin: The business is, first and foremost, a private art dealership. We started in London about eight years ago. We have a presence in Miami as well, and now Dubai is our third outpost.

We focus on the secondary market for 20th-century works of art. The majority of that is North American, British, European, and Asian. We [work] exclusively in the secondary market, which basically means that we don’t represent artists.

E: What is your role in the business today?

AB: I founded the business and I operate as the CEO / managing partner. The team has grown to a good stage now; we’ve got people in the company doing relatively autonomous work. But the thing with art galleries is that they take the vibe of their founders. Technically, an art gallery is a simple business, yet every single one is quite different. That’s part of the reason why I like it, but also why succession planning in gallery businesses — beyond the value of the stock on hand — is not easy.

E: If you allow me to zoom out to 35,000 ft, why art as a business in the first place?

AB: I was a collector before I became a dealer. I accidentally became a dealer in the sense that I bought some work which my wife never liked. So, after sort of to-ing and fro-ing for a couple of years, in the end, I said, “Right, well in that case, let’s just try and sell it.”

I put it through an auction. I said to the auction house, “I don’t really know how this stuff works, but if you can get me back what I paid for it, I’ll be delighted.” It turns out the thing sold for about ten times more than what we paid for it. I thought, “Okay, that’s quite interesting.”

The whole thing went from there. I started off as a collector, then went to a collector that sometimes sells, and then I was a sort of collector-dealer. Then we were selling to the level where we had to open premises, which then meant hiring staff, and then it snowballed. Now the business is what it is, but in the early stages, there really wasn’t any direction. It was just me doing what I loved.

E: Why 20th century specifically?

AB: Because at the beginning it was just me. That was what I liked. That was what I knew. That was the market I could focus on. The whole thing built out from there.

E: Was there any trepidation about making a passion into a business? You often hear people worry that the business will ruin the hobby.

AB: Well, I guess in a way it has ruined the hobby, but in a glorious way. The hobby no longer exists in its original form. But I love it. My spare time is spent reading books about art, books about the art market. I genuinely love it, and the fact I’ve made a business out of it — I can’t believe my luck, to be honest.

E: How do you manage such an in-person business from two very different, very distant locations?

AB: We’ve got a small team of people that work with us in those different locations. Each location to some extent manages itself. Ultimately, it is a personal business, but the business really got going during the Covid lockdowns. We went into lockdown as a relative newcomer — that period where I was a collector that sometimes sold — and we came out of Covid as a fully-fledged art company.

The core DNA of the business has been set up as a “global-first” kind of business. Because of that, we consider ourselves to be a lot nimbler and leaner than many other incumbents. There were some galleries that went under or struggled during Covid, whereas for us, that was how we grew.

We do exhibitions, but the majority of our business is private sales with our collectors around the world. We have storage units all over the place — Switzerland, two units in the US, London, and now Dubai. This is not a local gallery on a high street hoping someone walks in today to buy something. That’s not the business.

E: Who are the clients for you, qualitatively?

AB: Our core business is buying from, and selling to post-war and contemporary art collectors, but obviously collectors take different guises. We also work with institutions, museums, foundations, estates, and family offices. We do a lot of business with the trade as well, which is something a lot of incumbents probably don’t do as much.

Owning our inventory outright also allows us to be much more active in our dealings with the trade — it gives us the freedom to consign out the works we own with other galleries and dealers (be it for upcoming exhibitions and art fairs, for example).

E: What brought you to Dubai?

AB: I’ve had business interests out here for a while, and we’ve got a fairly wide range of clients collectors based out here that we’ve done an increasing amount of business with.

It just feels like an exciting place to be. It’s probably the fastest-growing network of collectors, investors, and family offices in the world right now. A lot of people I knew from London — especially the famous Indian trading families — left five or six years ago and they are all out here now. The place feels alive. I can’t think of a city that’s having a bigger influx of exactly the sort of people that we work with.

E: What keeps you awake at night right now?

AB: Direction is an important one. The business has a few different camps that we sit across, so maintaining focus and remembering what we’re good at is important. We have to be market-led to some extent, but we also have to remember what we’re good at and what we’re not.

In the art world, it’s just as important knowing what to say “no” to. With the types of transactions we do, you have to know everything about it, otherwise, you can go “off-piste” quite quickly.

E: What’s the most interesting trend in the industry right now that another insider would say, “Adam nailed that”?

AB: I think one of the biggest things no one really talks about is the changing power balance within the art world. If you go back 30 or 40 years, the leading galleries in New York, London, and Paris were absolute tastemakers. You walked into a gallery, they controlled the artist, they controlled everything.

Now, discovery is so much easier with social media and data in general. I have collectors I work with who will go to studio visits directly. You can now engage relatively easily with people you would have struggled to have met otherwise. I had a good collector/friend of mine recently ask if I wanted to come with him to a studio visit with a very high-profile famous artist. I told him that I probably shouldn’t because the representative gallery wouldn’t expect another dealer to attend the meeting, and he said “Oh no, it’s got nothing to do with them – I just Instagrammed the artist directly and he’s invited me over.” That simply wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago.

I feel that the “mega galleries” have, in one sense, never been as powerful — but in another sense, have never been so exposed in terms of the changing demographics of the market. You’ve got people like our business — we came in with no investment, no business plan, just me starting it. I feel in ten years’ time, the gatekeepers of the art world will be broader still. I have collectors around the world that I’ve sold significant works of art to before I ever met them in person. That’s just not how it was in the 80s or 90s.

E: So, what is your morning routine?

AB: Having been in Dubai for four months, it’s changing daily. I’m an early riser and so I’ll get up most days at 5am and usually try to work out before having breakfast with my family. My wife loves walking along the beach. Schools seem to start early here (compared to London), which I quite like actually.

E: And what does a typical day at work look like?

AB There isn’t really a typical day. The good thing about Dubai is that we’re a few hours ahead of London, so the first few hours of my day are often quite uninterrupted. We spend a lot of time on exhibitions and programming and publishing activities — getting that right for our collectors is hugely important to me. Depending on the season, like auction season in New York or London, it’s very busy.

Our business is interesting because we own most of the stock that we sell — buying with our own capital and sometimes with partners. Most other galleries are more broker / consignment driven. We’ve always had a steadier pace; we buy the works ourselves and sit on them.

E: But at the price of tying up the balance sheet. Why move in that direction?

AB: Because that’s what we’re good at. We’re good at buying works and using our distribution to sell them. It starts organically: You sell a few works to a family office, the conversation gets going, and they say, “If you see anything good, but you haven’t got the cashflow, can we partner up?” As a result in addition to simply buying inventory, we now do joint ventures, straight funding, and co-ownership with clients who essentially want to partly finance our inventory.

We’ve done a little bit more of the “synthetic end” of the art market, like action guarantees and loans. No one in the art market calls it that, but that’s what it is.

E: How do you stay organized?

AB: I have an exceptional PA back in the UK who knows my diary better than I do. I have a to-do list on my phone which never seems to get bigger or smaller — one thing comes off, another goes on.

Structure is important because otherwise, you can go from beginning to end of the day without doing much. Being in Dubai is making our company more organized because we have to arrange more team calls with London and the US throughout the week. I quite like it. It looks to the outside world like a fast and exciting business, but really it’s pretty slow and steady behind the scenes.

The day ends for me early evening, but I kind of don’t switch off. I have colleagues in the US, Europe, and here. I wouldn’t relax knowing there’s stuff in my inbox I haven’t seen. But I enjoy it. It’s my business.

E: What’s your biggest challenge as an entrepreneur?

AB: Focus. Knowing what to say “no” to. There is not a shortage of good ideas; the shortage is hours. I’m a transactions man, and you get an instinct for what will work. Sometimes I have to step in with staff and say, “That’s not going to happen, it’s moving in the wrong direction.”

The typical one in the art world is a client wanting too much money for a work. A naive dealer says, “Yeah, we’ll give it a go.” But you have to say, “It’s a waste of time, it won’t sell at that price.” Saying no is harder than saying yes.

Adam’s recommendations

Favourite Dubai restaurant: Cipriani in Gate Village. I was a regular the London one, so it feels very familiar. I’m a creature of habit. I don’t need to go to the new thing on opening night. I know what I like.

What he’s watching: It’s not new, but I’m a big fan of the early James Bond films. We watched Thunderball the other day. The Sean Connery Bond is exceptional.

What he’s reading: I’m halfway through Barbarians at the Gate again. I first read it ten years ago. It’s an important moment in the history of finance, looking at the LBO boom and the development of modern day private equity. I seem to oscillate between thinking “this is really exciting” and “is it a bit nerdy to be enjoying it this much?” but whatever it is, it’s dramatized very well.

Tags: