Loic Gouzer, who led the record-breaking 2017 sale of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," will step down as co-chairman of Americas postwar and contemporary art at Christie's by year's end, the auction house announced Monday.
During his seven-year tenure, Gouzer developed a reputation as an innovator ready to take big risks to clinch history-making sales mixing contemporary and historical works.
The 500-year-old da Vinci painting depicting Jesus Christ went under the hammer for $450.3 million in November 2017 -- the most expensive work ever sold at auction. It is the only known work by the artist to still be held in a private collection.
Gouzer also presided over a 2015 sale of Pablo Picasso's "Les femmes d'Alger (Version 'O')" for the then record sum of $179.4 million.
And last month, he led the sale of David Hockney's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" for $90.3 million, an auction record for a living artist.
Gouzer, a 38-year-old who spent his childhood in Geneva and is an avid Instagram user, gave no indication of his future plans.
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"Those who know me best know that my two great passions in life have always been art and the environment," he said in a statement.
"I intend to spend the next few months concentrating on conservation and climate issues before coming back to the art world with a new project." In 2013, Gouzer had organized a sale with friend and actor Leonardo di Caprio that raised $39 million for environmental initiatives.