Biography
Grégoire Billault is Chairman of Contemporary Art, overseeing all worldwide sales since 2021. He joined Sotheby’s in Paris in September 2000 as an expert in the Contemporary Art Department and was appointed Head of Department in 2004.
During Grégoire’s time at Sotheby’s Paris, he consigned and sold the Collection of Liliane and Michel Durand-Dessert—the finest Arte Povera collection ever offered on the market—in October 2005, and launched the Contemporary Art various-owner sales in 2006, establishing world records for leading French postwar artists including Soulages, Hantaï and Raysse. In November 2007, he helped to secure the sale of Francis Bacon’s Portrait of Muriel Belcher, which sold for $20 million, becoming the most expensive Contemporary artwork ever sold in France at the time. He also secured the consignment of Bacon’s Triptych, 1976, which sold for $86 million in May 2008 in New York—the most expensive Contemporary work of art ever sold at the time.
Grégoire moved to New York in 2011 as a Senior Specialist, became Head of Sales in 2014, and was appointed Head of Department in 2016. During his tenure, he has brought to market several landmark works, including the Mellon Collection and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Blue Head), which sold for $110.5 million—the highest price ever paid at auction for a work by an American artist at the time. He also oversaw the sale of Francis Bacon’s Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus from the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, which achieved $84.6 million; Andy Warhol’s White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times], which sold for over $85.4 million—a record for a Warhol painting in 2022; and Pablo Picasso’s Femme à la montre from the Emily Fisher Landau Collection, which realised $139.4 million, the second-highest price ever achieved for Picasso at auction. He also played an important role in the success of the record-breaking Macklowe Collection, the most expensive single-owner sale ever to come to market at the time.
Prior to joining Sotheby’s, Grégoire worked for three years in Paris at Galerie Obadia and Galerie Xippas, and for two years at Faggionato Fine Arts in London, where he was involved with the Francis Bacon Estate. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Paris XII University.
