Who
The co-head of post-war and contemporary art at auction house Christie's, Gorvy helps stoke the flames of the white-hot contemporary art market.

Backstory
The son of London art collectors, Gorvy started out as an arts journalist. He made the jump to the sales side when he joined Christie's in 1994, and—along with Amy Cappellazzo—became co-head of post-war art for the venerable auction house in 2001, following the departure of Philippe Segalot. He's more than earned his keep since then, although that may have less to do with Gorvy and more to do with the cultural moment, with prices for modern art soaring as Wall Street execs engage in competitive trophy hunting. Nonetheless, Gorvy's been present at some of the most expensive deals in recent memory. In 2006, he brought the gavel down on a Warhol portrait of Mao for $17.2 million and in 2007, he secured the sale of Andy Warhol's "Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I)," which had a pre-sale estimate of $25 to $35 million. He ended up doing a lot better than that: The gavel came down at $71.72 million. The declining stock market made Christie's February 2008 auction less of a success—more than a quarter of the pieces offered up to bidders failed to sell.

Personal
Gorvy met his wife, Christie's director of business development Amy Gold, in 2000 at a Hertz car rental counter en route to Michigan to appraise a collection. They started dating a year later and eloped four months afterwards. They have one child. Until recently, they lived in a prewar on West End Avenue. They sold the three-bedroom apartment for $2.175 million in 2009.

No joke
Gorvy also advises the occasional celebrity on purchases: He helped Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich assemble his art collection.