ABOUT CHERITH 

 

Based between London, New York & Edinburgh, Cherith Summers is an experienced and passionate art advisor and art historian, with specialist knowledge of Post War, Contemporary and Emerging Art.​ In 2025, she founded her independent art advisory practice, bringing together more than a decade of experience in the art world. 

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Cherith has worked in art advisory since 2017, spending five years as a Director at Murphy & Partners in London before launching her own business. In her time at Murphy & Partners, she managed complex selling projects across auction, private sale and gallery channels; worked with interior and yacht designers on site-specific acquisitions; and advised private collectors on how to build and realise their dream collections. Getting to know collectors -  understanding what they love and why - and helping them build something that lasts is the work that she has most enjoyed, and sits at the heart of everything she does today.

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Prior to Murphy & Partners, Cherith worked for the Estate of Francis Bacon, as an art researcher for the digital catalogue raisonné project. She began her career in the Post-War & Contemporary Art department at Christie's London.

 

Cherith holds an MA in Art History and English and an MLitt in Museum & Gallery Studies from the University of St Andrews. Her MLitt thesis was the biography of Erica Brausen, the gallerist who first represented Francis Bacon and helped shape the course of post-war British art. 

 

In 2019 she co-curated Brave New Visions: The émigrés who transformed the British art world — an exhibition hosted by Sotheby's as part of the Insiders / Outsiders Festival. She has delivered papers at Sotheby's Institute of Arts, the Association for Art History, the Ben Uri Gallery, and London Art Week; contributed to the Art Market Dictionary; and lectured for Sotheby's Institute of Art on their Art & Business courses. She writes periodically for The Back Room Bulletin. 

 

She is a USPAP-compliant appraiser of fine art and tangible personal property, a candidate for Certified Membership of the Appraisers Society of America, and a member of AWITA - the Association of Women in the Arts.

 

Cherith is based between New York, London and Edinburgh. She works with a small number of clients internationally, from first-time buyers to established collectors, and brings the same passion and focus to every relationship.