Pros
As a smaller auction house, Swann offers the opportunity to learn every aspect of the auction industry and to work closely with clients and artwork. Specialists are passionate about their respective fields and are always eager to share their knowledge and expertise.
Cons
The culture at Swann is an ongoing issue that the company is aware of yet makes little to no effort to improve. The highest level of management lacks basic leadership skills and regularly exhibits unprofessional behavior in the form of inappropriate comments and jokes. One member of the executive team has a longstanding reputation for extreme arrogance and condescension that is directed to staff and clients alike, yet the behavior continues to go unchecked. This unprofessional atmosphere set in place by senior management sets the tone company-wide and trickles down into interactions between other lower and mid-level employees. The performance review process is arbitrary, as it is disconnected from raises, promotions, and bonuses. Decisions regarding employee growth and salary are made at the sole discretion of the President, who is resistant to promoting talented employees for fear that they will leverage a new title into a role at a competing company. Department directors and managers are put in a frustrating position, as they seem to have no voice in, let alone control over, the professional development of their valued staff members. They invest their time and energy into nurturing talented employees, only to see them leave after two years due to poor pay, absence of growth potential, and lack of respect by executive leadership who seem to view junior staff as expendable. The executive team must invest in talent and support internal growth or otherwise should expect to continue to have the same problems with staff retention. These are not new problems and have been well-documented in previous Glassdoor reviews. The physical state of the gallery is in a constant state of upheaval and there is a severe lack of storage for artwork. The general clutter and haphazard storage of consignments (paintings stacked against walls in high-traffic hallways, piled in fire exits, etc.) is not only unsightly, but creates a hazardous and stressful work environment. The gallery has outgrown its space to the point where the company is unable to provide adequate workspaces for employees and areas for client appointments. As a Cataloguer, I spent much of my time hunting for areas in which to perform the day-to-day duties of my job, especially open surfaces large enough to accommodate the artwork that I regularly handled. I was not given the resources to do my job efficiently and effectively, despite nearly constant entreaties.