Heritage Auctions has announced that Peter M. Fairbanks, an industry veteran with more than 35 years of experience in the fields of American and European Art, is joining Heritage Auctions as Director of Fine Art, West Coast.

“Having Peter Fairbanks join our already well-seasoned team is a great achievement,” said Brian Roughton, Managing Director of Fine Art at Heritage. “His vast knowledge and impeccable international reputation will contribute significantly to the advancement of our already stellar Fine Art department at Heritage.”

Fairbanks, a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, received his Bachelor’s degree in Classical Studies from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and completed Sotheby’s Executive Training Program in London in 1974. Upon his return to the United States, he founded the Fine Art Department at William Doyle Galleries in New York. When Phillips (Son & Neale) Auctioneers, the London-based company, opened in New York, Fairbanks was appointed Senior Vice President, overseeing Business Development and Fine Art. In 1980, he was hired by Butterfield Auctioneers (now Bonhams), San Francisco, as Senior Vice President of Operations and Director of the Fine Art Department. 

“I have watched the growth of Heritage with great interest over the last decade and have been impressed by what the house has accomplished and by what it hopes to accomplish going forward,” said Fairbanks. “There is incredible potential in the Fine Art Department and I look forward to maximizing the in-house talent we have and to using my own skills and knowledge to make a lasting impact on the art world.”

Fairbanks served on the Boards of the European Fine Art Foundation (organizers of The European Fine Art Fair, Maastricht, The Netherlands), the Hearst Castle Preservation Foundation and the American Conservatory Theater, among others. He is the Western Regional Representative of the Appraisers Association of America, and has served as a fine art appraiser continuously for the PBS television series Antiques Roadshow since its inception in 1997.

Fairbanks has penned articles for various art publications and is the author of the monograph on the French Post-Impressionist painter  Henri Lebasque, the basis for the recently published catalogue raisonné. He has written and published more than 60 catalogues for Montgomery Gallery, most recently on California’s Society of Six.

Heritage Auctions is the largest auction house founded in the United States and the world’s third largest, with annual sales of more than $900 million, and 850,000+ online bidder members. For more information about Heritage Auctions, and to join and receive access to a complete record of prices realized, with full-color, enlargeable photos of each lot, please visit HA.com.