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Mari-Claudia is a partner and global co-head of our art law practice, and leads Withers Art and Advisory.
Throughout her career, she has been a trusted advisor, counselor and advocate for renowned collectors and estates, prominent museums, galleries, and auction houses and has been involved in countless major acquisitions, consignments and litigations.Mari-Claudia previously served as Chairman, President, Americas and Head of Global Business Development of Sotheby's where for close to a decade she led Sotheby's growing client and business development activities globally, using her extensive experience in the field as a principal dealmaker and driver of major estate and single owner collections. She played an integral role in numerous groundbreaking sales including the collection of legendary philanthropist and art patron Emily Fisher Landau, the $922 Million Macklowe Collection, the collection of legendary music producer Mo Ostin and celebrity collections such as that of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Sinatra, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman and the Nobel Prize winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
In her legal career, Mari-Claudia has worked on countless transactions that have captured world-wide attention, including the sale to the Neue Galerie of Gustav Klimt’s, Adele Block-Bauer I, at the time the most expensive painting ever sold (she represented the buyer), the restitution and sale (both privately and at auction) of five masterpieces by Kazimir Malevich worth hundreds of millions of dollars (Jiménez represented the sellers) and the sale of what was at the time the most expensive painting sold at auction, Picasso's $106.5 Million Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, which was part of the roughly $300 Million sale of the Estate of Frances Lasker Brody.
Mari-Claudia has also played an important role in domestic and international art claims; with particularly noteworthy success in cases seeking the return of Nazi looted art, and is the foremost legal expert on art misappropriated in Cuba, a subject she maintains a strong connection to through her Cuban-Spanish heritage.
A thought leader at the intersection of art and law, Mari-Claudia is a frequent speaker on a variety of issues affecting the art and auction market and has been featured in numerous trade and international publications such as CNN, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Forbes, and The Financial Times, amongst others, and in 2019 was featured in People Magazine in Español as one of the “25 Most Powerful Women of 2019” (25 Mujeres Más Poderosas del 2019).
Me in a minute
From the time I was an art history student at Williams College and spent every college summer interning in some of the world's best museums I knew that my passion was to work in the art world. I am fortunate enough to be able to say that I have spent my entire professional career working with art—both as an art lawyer, zealously advocating for my clients as they navigate the idiosyncrasies of the art market and as senior art world executive, helping to lead a major auction house though fluctuating markets and changing tastes and I rely on both of those perspectives and all the market experience that comes along with them when counselling and advising clients.