The Thrill of the Chase: Collecting Art in Our Time

John Hays

John Hays began his career at Christie’s in 1983 and became one of the premier auctioneers of Americana. He was appointed Deputy Chairman, Americas, in 2002. Hays has spent most of his career focused on developing business strategies for top art collections. He participated in numerous record-breaking sales including the unprecedented sale of the Nicholas Brown Chippendale desk-and-bookcase in 1989; the January 2006 single-owner collection of Americana, "The Property from the Collection of Mrs. J. Insley Blair," which included the seminal portrait by Charles Willson Peale, "George Washington at Princeton"; the landmark sales of The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller; and the recent sale of Emmanuel Leutze’s 1851 "Washington Crossing the Delaware," the record for any image of George Washington.

Hays brings tremendous expertise and insight to the art market and specifically to the field of Americana. As a private art adviser, Hays works with collectors and institutions to buy and sell works across the breadth of the art market.

Hays is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Kenyon College. He completed a graduate program in Art History in the Christie’s Fine Art Courses in London, a fellowship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Summer Language Institute at Middlebury College in Vermont. Hays lives in New York City with his wife, Bliss Summers.