John Keats, MAB's national operations officer, is leaving to join the franchise in an as yet unannounced capacity.
Wisdom has it that he would make a great boost to the art expertise in the exposed Sydney office, with the managing director of Sotheby's Australia, Geoffrey Smith, being based in Melbourne..
Despite his acclaimed organisation capability, Keats he is believed to have had a yen for having closer involvement with the art that an auction house handles.
Keats was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Art History and Curatorship) degree from the Australian National University and completed a Graduate Diploma in Arts in 1998.
He has worked closely with the National Gallery of Australia in the Australian Art, Education and Public Programs departments.
He was with Deutscher~Menzies since 1999, in the role of Registrar and has extensive cataloguing and conservation expertise. He brings to the role of Senior Executive sound market knowledge and professionalism.
The chairman of Menzies Art Brands, Rodney Menzies, said that he was very disappointed to lose a member of staff who had contributed greatly to his enterprise, but he understood that Keats wanted to explore new avenues of interest.
Both Keats and Geoffrey Smith were unavailable for comment.
Many of Sotheby's Australia's specialist staff including Head of Paintings in Sydney Georgina Pemberton and later another Sydney art expert David Cook left after the takeover by Tim Goodman's First East Auction Holdings.
