About Heritage Auctions - Art: American Paintings & Sculpture

Aviva Lehmann joined Heritage in January 2013 after fourteen years in the auction industry. With over twenty years of in-depth knowledge and experience in American Art, she holds a broad interest in all aspects of the field. Aviva previously served as Vice President, Specialist in the American Art department at Christie’s, where she was instrumental in establishing dozens of auction records in virtually every category of American Art. While directing their mid-season auctions in 2004-6 she doubled the value of these sales.  

Aviva lectures on American Art at museums and institutions throughout the country. She also serves as an adjunct professor of Appraisals and Valuation in the Art Administration Master’s Program at New York University. Aviva has been featured as a tastemaker in various publications, including Forbes, Intelligent Collector, Christie’s Magazine, and Yeshiva University Alumni Magazine. As an expert on the art market, Aviva has been a contributor to broadcast television shows on Fox News and Bloomberg.  

Aviva graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from Yeshiva University. She has also successfully completed the coursework and examination in the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice.

Alissa is well versed on the art market, having managed multi-million dollar collections nationwide, helping collectors find premier paintings by important California and Western artists; and having worked both at major California and New York auction houses and alongside some of the country’s most respected dealers.  Alissa received her BA in Art History with an emphasis in the Italian Renaissance, then pursued her Master’s in American Fine and Decorative Arts. After spending several years in New York, Alissa decided to return to her native grounds to specialize in the great masters of the American West, working in the California Painting department of another prominent auction house and as Director of a highly recognized California Art Gallery. “I realized early on that this niche of the market is filled with passionate collectors and I feel fortunate to continue to build relationships with those buyers ” In addition to her role as Director, California Art, Alissa acts as one of the company’s auctioneers.

Art historian Dr. Marianne Berardi serves as Heritage Auctions' Senior Expert in American Art and Director of Old Master Paintings. Her dual expertise in American 20^th-Century Art and Dutch 17^th Century Painting was the combination which first brought her to Heritage in 2006 to research and write the book-length auction catalogue for the Walsh Family Collection of American and European Painting sold through Heritage in the Fall of 2006. Since that time she was responsible for bringing to Heritage the following collections and estates, as well as researching and writing their accompanying catalogues: the Hon. Judge Paul H. Buchanan Collection of American Painting (November 11, 2009);Lucille Ball Memorabilia from the Collection of Susie Morton and Gary Morton (Lucille Ball’s second husband) (November 14, 2010); The Collection of Paul Gregory and Janet Gaynor (March 20, 2011); Contemporary Art from the Estate of Dr. Edmund P. Pillsbury (October 26, 2011); Selections from the American Painting Collection of the Jean and Graham Devoe Williford Charitable Trust (May 15, 2012; May 11, 2013; and May 2014 forthcoming).

Marianne holds both a M.A. in 20^th Century American Art and a Ph.D. in Dutch 17^th-Century Art from the University of Pittsburgh. She held a Kress Fellowship; a Theodore Rousseau Fellowship in connoisseurship studies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and two consecutive Andrew W. Mellon fellowships. During her five-year tenure as Director of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of American Art in St. Joseph, Missouri, she published widely on Benton and the Regionalists. In 1993, she curated a comprehensive exhibition of the work of Thomas Hart Benton and many of his pupils whom she tracked down from many regions of the United States. The exhibition, Under the Influence: The Students of Thomas Hart Benton (1993), was accompanied by her book-length catalogue of the same title. In 2010, her book on Benton pupil Margot Peet (Discovering Margot Peet) was published by Posterity Press. Following her move to Cleveland, Ohio, Marianne served as Director of the Cleveland Artists Foundation. She has taught art history at the University of Pittsburgh, the Kansas City Art Institute, Case Western Reserve University, and John Carroll University.  She has a reading knowledge of French, Dutch, German, and Italian. She is currently completing a monograph and catalogue raisonne on the celebrated Dutch flower painter, Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), on whom she is the recognized authority.