From Christie's to Clicks: Charlotte Stewart on Modernizing the Prints Market
Welcome to the Art Business Podcast with David Bellingham. In this episode David speaks with Charlotte Stewart, Managing Director of MyArtBroker, about her non‑traditional route into the art world, her decade at Christie’s, and the digital pivot that led her to help build a leading online prints and editions brokerage.
Charlotte describes how editorial storytelling and business management skills learned in traditional auction-house roles have shaped her approach to marketing, valuation and running a profitable tech-enabled business. She explains why MyArtBroker focuses on prints and editions, how the platform combines a machine‑learning valuation engine (drawing on data from some 400 auction houses) with specialist human expertise, and why authenticity, condition reports and conservator checks remain central to every sale.
The conversation covers MyArtBroker’s business model — private sales, referrals and trade business — and practical differences from galleries and auction houses, including zero percent seller fees and taking a buyer-side margin. Charlotte reflects on how the pandemic accelerated online buying, why Banksy prints were particularly well-suited to digital brokerage, and how the company balanced rapid growth with maintaining trust and authority in the market.
Key themes include the interplay of technology and human judgement (Charlotte’s “sandwich” analogy for AI as an assistant, not a replacement), the importance of focused specialism rather than chasing shiny new products, and the role of curated content and data in building credibility. She also discusses collector demographics, the looming wealth transfer from boomers to younger buyers, and predictions for how brokerage, authentication and digital tools may evolve over the next five years.
Listeners can expect practical insights for anyone interested in art careers, digital transformation in the art market, and the operational realities of running an online brokerage — from valuation methodology and trust-building to when to use technology and when human specialists must lead the process.
Guest: Charlotte Stewart, Managing Director at My Art Broker. Host: David Bellingham, Programme Director, MA Art Business, Sotheby's Institute of Art London. Topics: career paths in the art market; prints and editions brokerage; valuation algorithms and machine learning; pandemic acceleration of online sales; authentication and condition reporting; AI as an assistant; collector behaviour and the future of art brokerage.
Links:
https://www.myartbroker.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-stewart-775a35a1/?originalSubdomain=uk
music
‘Baby, I Miss The Internet’ (Rama, Rama, Rama)
by TOT TAYLOR
is used by kind permission of the artist
©Tot Taylor/Songmatic Music (2020)
Ireland