Guillaume Cerutti, the former CEO of Christie’s auction house, has left his position at the Pinault Collection after just 13 months, the French investigative news outlet Glitz reported earlier this week.
In February 2025, Cerutti became president of the collection owned by French billionaire François Pinault. In addition to the 10,000 works in its holdings, the Pinault Collection also maintains several private museums: the Bourse de Commerce in Paris and the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice, which regularly stage exhibitions. The Paris location opened in 2021, while the Venice outposts opened in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Pinault also owns Venice’s Teatrino, a 225-seat auditorium that reopened in 2013 after a renovation by Tadao Ando, who also worked on the other two Venice spaces.
Neither Cerutti nor the Pinault Collection has commented on his departure, with a spokesperson telling the Art Newspaper there are no plans to appoint a new president or an interim. Pinault still serves as honorary president of the collection and is said to be very active in its management.
Cerutti has had a long career in French public arts, having served as the Centre Pompidou’s managing director and as chief of staff to the minister of culture, and in the auction houses. In the latter, he served as CEO of Sotheby’s France from 2007 to 2011, when he became deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Europe. In 2016, he was hired as Christie’s president for Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and India. A year later, he became CEO, a role he held until January 2025. He was replaced by Bonnie Brennan, the then-regional president of the Americas, though he has continued to serve as board chairman.
The move to the Pinault Collection did not mean a change in boss: Pinault has been the owner of Christie’s since 1998. Both entities are owned by his investment holding company Groupe Artémis, which also owns Creative Artists Agency, which the billionaire purchased in 2023 for $7 billion. Pinault made his fortune as the founder of luxury group Kering, which owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Bottega Veneta; he is the 81st wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $29.5 billion, per Forbes‘s annual billionaires list.
