Overstone Spotlight
Tarabella Frazer: Art Research & Client Success Specialist
Can you tell us about your career journey and what brought you to Overstone?
My career began at Sotheby's and MacDougall's in their specialist Russian Art departments, following my degrees in Russian Art at Bristol and the Courtauld. I loved the research and how varied and fast‑paced the roles were at these auction houses, but most of all the privilege of being surrounded by such knowledgeable and dedicated colleagues who were willing to share their time and expertise.
After a brief hiatus during the Covid‑19 pandemic, when I worked in retail, I joined Eames Fine Art, a fine art print gallery in London. It was another dynamic and fulfilling role where I expanded my knowledge of the print market and printing techniques through their roster of talented artists.
I joined Overstone full‑time in 2023, although I had already worked as a researcher on several due diligence projects prior to then. I work across both the Art and Data teams, which means I see firsthand how they inform one another. In addition, I support our clients in making full use of our services and expertise via the Overstone Platform, helping them understand and use art as a financial asset.
What aspects of your work continue to inspire and motivate you on a daily basis?
My role allows me to be curious. The artworks we encounter every day during valuations and due diligence are so varied in subject matter, medium and period that I always have an opportunity to broaden my expertise.
I have also begun learning SQL, a skill I’ve used to combine traditional research with data analytics when researching market trends.
WHAT role do you think data will play in shaping the future of the art market?
Data has always been central to the art market, as sale results, trends, and the inherent attributes of an artwork are all forms of data. With the growth of AI, high‑quality and trustworthy data is becoming even more important for LLMs and other AI tools to play a meaningful role in the art world.
However, human expertise and connoisseurship remain irreplaceable in the art market. I am proud that Overstone places such importance on human expertise alongside AI so that the strengths of both can be utilised.
...and finally, if any artwork could hang on your wall, which one would you choose and why?
Natalia Goncharova was a pioneering and prolific artist - her 1913 retrospective, held when she was just 32, included over 700 works. It would be hard to choose between her Neo-Primitivist paintings depicting scenes from her childhood in rural Russia, such as Gardening (1908), her bright and striking Rayonist paintings, such as Cats (Rayonist Perception in Rose, Black and Yellow) (1913), and her theatre designs for the Ballets Russes, such as the backdrops for Le Coq d’Or or L’Oiseau de feu and her costume designs with instructions to the dressmakers and notes on fabrics and colours - these designs are both beautiful and functional artworks.
It would also be special to have a watercolour by Tatiana Mavrina, having studied her in depth for my MA dissertation. She is best known for her vibrant children’s book illustrations and her series of watercolour drawings of Moscow and its surroundings, but less so for her depictions of the female nude, which were influenced by the Impressionist and Post‑Impressionist paintings she saw during her visits to the Shchukin and Morozov collections.