Renato Pennisi
International Specialist, Director
One of the senior members of the EMERI (Europe, Middle East, Russia and India) specialist team of Christie’s, Renato Pennisi is currently working as a Director and Senior Specialist of Modern and Contemporary Art in Christie’s Italy.
He joined Christie’s in 2001 as Junior Specialist and was then promoted to the role of Specialist and Co-Head of Milan Sale in 2007.
From 2013, he launched a new sale format called Milan Modern and Contemporary, a monographic sale focused on the most desirable italian artists, which from the beginning reached impressive percentage with over 90% of lots sold (and an historical result in 2015 with 100% sold).
In this role, Renato achieved some of the best international auction results with artists as Lucio Fontana (sold to a private client in March 2018 for £ 8,671,250; and in October 2018 for £ 16,282,823, currently the third highest price for the artist), Piero Manzoni (sold to a private client in April 2018 for € 2,970,000 which is the highest sale result for a work of art sold in Italy), Emilio Vedova (sold to a private client in November 2008 for € 731,600, setting the artist’s record price at the time of auction), as well as Giorgio Morandi (sold to a private client in October 2015 for £ 2,546,500, currently the second highest price for the artist), Umberto Boccioni (sold to a private client in November 2007 for € 1,866,950, setting the world record price for a work on paper by the artist) and Francis Bacon (sold to a private client in May 2017 $ 49,812,500).