Bob Jack in his Christie’s days.
BOB Jack (1924-2017), who died on January 13, was a long-time member of the art trade. He followed his father into the business after been told by him at the age of 14: “You are going to work at Christie’s.”
For health reasons military service was out of the question, so he spent the war years as part of the skeleton staff that kept Christie’s running. He was present on the morning after Christie’s was destroyed in the bombing of 1941, after which the auction house moved to Derby House where Bob was cataloguing sales by day and fire-watching at night, sleeping on a table in the basement to avoid rats.