
Rotter’s progressive approach to presenting extraordinary works of art to the market has yielded many of the most groundbreaking moments in auction history. His recent career highlights include the 2017 sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi , which sold for $450 million, becoming the most expensive object ever sold at auction, and Jeff Koons’ Rabbit from the Collection of SI Newhouse, which sold for $91.1 million and set a world auction record for a living artist. He also established the new main sale category 20th and 21st Century Art at Christie’s, a reimagined sale strategy that positions art within the period that it was created, as opposed to the movement that defined it.
In 2020, Rotter’s keen market intelligence and creativity were integral to the implementation of the first-of-its-kind global relay auction, live-streamed from Christie’s salerooms in Hong Kong, Paris, London and New York. Responding to the need to reconfigure the traditional Evening Sale format as a result of the COVID-19 virus, the groundbreaking sale ultimately yielded the highest result for any auction that year.
Prior to joining Christie’s, Rotter was Worldwide Co-Head of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s (2008-2016), where he oversaw the rise in the firm’s global contemporary art sales.
Growing up in a family of art dealers in his native Austria, Rotter studied at the University of Vienna. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two sons.