Dean F. Failey
Senior Director
New York
During his tenure at Christie’s, which began in 1979, Mr. Failey has established significant sale milestones in the field of American Decorative Arts. These include the highly publicized Lindens auction in 1983 and the 1986 sale of a Philadelphia Chippendale tea table, which was the first example of American furniture to break the $1.0 million mark and The Nicholas Brown desk and bookcase which sold for $12.1 million (June 1989), setting the World Auction record for American Furniture which still stands today. Most recently, he was involved in the sale of the Property from the Collection of Mrs. J. Insley Blair which established the highest selling single-owner collection of Americana (2006). Mr. Failey was Associate Curator, The Bayou Bend Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Curator, The Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities and Executive Director of the East Hampton Historical Society. He presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of numerous museums and organizations including the Decorative Arts Trust, Old Westbury Gardens and The Heckscher Museum of Art. A graduate of the prestigious Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, Mr. Failey has contributed to numerous publications and exhibitions within the decorative arts field; he is the author of the seminal study of Long Island decorative arts, Long Island Is My Nation.