ABOUT

Lara A. Bjork, Founder, Principal Advisor

Lara A. Björk is the founder and principal art advisor of Von Rudebeck Art Advisory.

Lara works with an international client base to provide expertise and guidance to those new to collecting and those who have been collecting for generations. Her passion and deeply seeded interest for fine art was instilled at a very young age through her mother, Anne Wehrley Björk, a practicing artist, and being raised in a collecting household. Having family in Sweden, with frequent travels abroad to museums, galleries, and artist studios served as an early foundation in the arts. Through constant research, networking, exhibition viewings, and travel to international art fairs and auctions, Lara brings a highly developed eye and access to the most important relationships in the constantly evolving art market.

Lara received an MA in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art London in 2009. After receiving her undergraduate degree with a dual major in Corporate Finance and Marketing, she worked in Private Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch in Washington, DC managing finances for professional athletes.

Through her next role as Director of a private art financing firm for nearly three years, she deepened her knowledge of the fine art market and international art world network, paramount to valuations, condition reports, and risk assessment of various loans. Her analytical perspective and acute awareness to the importance of creating a coherent collection and lasting legacy allows her to guide clients towards artists within the ever changing and developing future of art history, yet fit each of their specific aesthetic and budget.

For over fifteen years, she has worked closely with leading contemporary art galleries, auction houses, private dealers, and institutions to establish relationships with an international network of artists, collectors, art insurers, shippers, appraisers, framers, conservators, experts, foundations, and scholars. This facilitates her revered placement of works ranging from Emerging to Post-War and Contemporary Art, from Harold Ancart to Jean-Michel Basquiat, working with a wide range of budgets and aesthetics, with clients from Los Angeles to Tokyo.

Lara serves as a member of the collections and exhibitions committees at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC, and an advisor to the ArtFields competition/artist residency program in Lake City, SC.

[ Advisory Services ]

  • Emily Usher is a Washington, DC based advisor at Von Rudebeck Art Advisory.

    For nearly a decade, Emily has built personalized and value driven collections for clients on both the East and West Coasts. She provides collection management and advisory services for collectors at all levels and stages in their collecting journey with a specific focus on contemporary art and design from the 20th and 21st Century.

    Prior to joining Von Rudebeck Art Advisory, Emily worked independently in Los Angeles advising and providing comprehensive collection management services, including acquisitions, collection inventory and cataloging, valuations, as well as deaccession strategies.

    Emily started her career at Phillips with a focus on 20th Century design and jewelry. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in art history from Lake Forest College and a Master of Arts from The New School Parsons in partnership with the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Museum in history of design and curatorial studies.

  • Melly Wirtes serves as Registrar and Assistant to the Von Rudebeck Art Advisory team.

    She has over ten years of art education from some of the world’s leading art institutions, including Sotheby’s Institute of Art (MA), Savannah College of Art and Design (BFA), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of the Arts London (Dip), and Interlochen Arts Academy (Dip).

    Her Master's thesis "Operationalizing Anti-Racist Curatorial Strategies in Early American Collections" developed within Sotheby’s Fine and Decorative Art and Design department, was awarded distinction in 2021.

    Melly’s professional experience spans the fields of fine art collection management, copyright law and contemporary photography. Prior to joining Von Rudebeck Art Advisory, she cataloged The Coca-Cola Company’s corporate fine art collection and Mark Seliger’s print archives.

  • Administrative Assistant