Locations
Christie's main London salesroom is on King Street in St. James's, where it has been based since 1823. It has a second London salesroom in South Kensington which opened in 1975 and primarily handles the middle market. Christie's South Kensington is one of the world's busiest auction rooms.
In 1977, Christie's opened a branch on New York's Park Avenue, with a salesroom accommodating about 600 people. Increasingly cramped for space, the auction house signed a 30-year lease in 1997 for a 300,000-square-foot space in Rockefeller Center for $40 million. (The Christie's New York sign was created by Nancy Meyers during the production of the 2003 film Something's Gotta Give for an exterior shot; the auction house liked the sign so much that it requested the production leave it after shooting finished.) Until 2001, Christie's East, a division that sold lower-priced art and objects, was located at 219 East 67th Street. In 1996, Christie's bought a town house on East 59th Street in Manhattan as a separate gallery where experts could show clients art in complete privacy to conduct private treaty sales. Christie's opened a Beverly Hills salesroom in 1997.
As of January 2009, Christie's had 85 offices (not all are salesrooms) in 43 countries, including New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Geneva, Houston, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Rome, South Korea, Milan, Madrid, Japan, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Tel Aviv, Dubai, and Mexico City. In 1995, Christie's became the first international auction house to exhibit works of art in Beijing, China.
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