Gemma Sanders

Head of Modern Design and Decorative Arts

Gemma Sanders joined Dreweatts in 2024 bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to her role, having established herself as a respected figure in the world of modern and contemporary design and decorative arts.

Prior to joining Dreweatts, Gemma spent 15 years at Bonhams London, working across their New Bond Street and Knightsbridge salerooms. She was head of department there for 7 years, playing a key role in every aspect of their modern design and decorative arts auctions.

Gemma is an auctioneer, as well as a new expert on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, and looks forward to her inaugural Design sale at Dreweatts, taking place on 21 November 2024. Her specialist field of expertise is far-reaching, covering all the new and aesthetically exciting design movements and fields of collectability that have come to characterise the diverse nature and ingenuity of the 20th/21st Century.

While at Bonhams she introduced vintage posters to her sales, selling the first original ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster ever to come to auction for £16,000, and consigning another 6 months later for Bonhams, New York. Also selling the first painting by Vittorio Zecchin, until then known only as a glassmaker, Gemma took a “punt” on one of his paintings.  These are now offered in Impressionist auctions the world over.  She broke her first world record selling price for the ceramicist Lucie Rie in 2017, with a pink conical bowl at over £100,000, offered in her ‘Important Design’ auction, subsequently breaking the selling price record for a work by Hans Coper (2022) and again for Lucie Rie (2023).