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Erica Barrish
Erica Barrish is the Founder and Principal of EAB Fine Art Services, a full-service art advisory firm based in New York City. With over 20 years of experience in the international art market, Erica has served as an art advisor, appraiser, auction specialist, curator, lecturer, writer, scholar, and critic. Prior to launching EAB Fine Art Services in 2013, Erica was the Director of Sales for Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York. Previously, she spent eight years as a contemporary art specialist and Head of Sales for Sotheby’s, Wright, and Christie’s auction houses. She also worked as an appraiser and art advisor for Appraisal Resource Associates. Erica is a USPAP-certified fine art appraiser through the American Society of Appraisers (ASA). She serves on the Director’s Acquisition Committee at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Curator’s Council for the Dia Art Foundation, as a consultant and advisor to NXTHVN in New Haven, Connecticut, and an Executive Member of the Association of Professional Art Advisors (APAA). In 2023, Erica was named as one of the Top 10 Advisors in the ARTNews list of Top Art World Professionals.
With a keen understanding of the global art market, connoisseurship and portfolio management, Erica advises new and seasoned collectors to acquire and divest significant works of art from the 19th through 21st century. Deeply engaged in the global art and design community, Erica’s clients benefit not only from Erica’s network of leading galleries, dealers, and auction houses, but also from her active relationships with working artists, artists’ estates, and cultural institutions. She has also served distinguished foundations – including the Ford Foundation and the Mellon Foundation – in large-scale advisory and collections management projects. Erica is a member of Association of Professional Art Advisors.
As a curator, Erica has received critical acclaim throughout her career. In 2021, Erica co-curated a two-part exhibition titled Carve, Curve, Cane / Modern In Your Life at R+Company in New York and the BassamFellows design headquarters – the Philip Johnson-designed Schlumberger Building in Ridgefield, CT – highlighting iconic modern and contemporary design in dialogue with modern and contemporary works of art. In 2018, Erica co-curated with Tavares Strachan an exhibition titled Always, Sometimes, Never at the Frye Museum in Seattle. From 2014–2015 she was a visiting curator at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, where she organized the exhibition Reductive Minimalism: Women Artists in Dialogue, 1960–2014. She has also worked on curatorial projects with the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Erica received her BFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1999, where she graduated cum laude and was a Dean’s List honoree. She holds an MA in art history from Hunter College. She has lectured extensively at the University of Michigan, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Sotheby’s Institute on topics related to the global art market.
Esme Spanier Peiffer
With over 15 years of experience in the international art market, Esme has served in diverse capacities at Christie's and Sotheby's, represented a leading design gallery globally, and led client relationships and registrarial support for an art-focused software company. Through her deep expertise, Esme leads collections management, registrarial services, offering extensive research and market analysis. Working with private collectors, estates, fiduciaries, foundations, and artists, she prioritizes relationships above all as critical to providing excellent service.
Esme received her BA from Tufts University, where she was awarded a university research grant for her undergraduate thesis on 17th-Century Dutch domestic genre painting. She holds an MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University and has completed additional coursework at the NYU-SCPS Appraisal Studies program, NYU Institute of Fine Arts, NYU Stern School of Business, and the University of Amsterdam’s Centre for the Study of the Golden Age.
