Maria Brito breaks down how she guides collectors—from financiers to creatives—through a volatile art market with precision and perspective. Photo by Peter Koloff

Maria Brito has quietly but firmly established herself as one of the most successful art advisors in New York. That success is quantifiable and highly visible, though more important than her 142,000 Instagram followers are the more than $150 million in acquisitions facilitated for Oscar-winning actors, Grammy-winning musicians and high-powered finance executives. What makes her story so compelling, however, is that she came to art from corporate law and, over the past fifteen years, has navigated the market’s boom-and-bust cycles with the steady hand of a strategist. We connected with the advisor ahead of the New York City art fairs to get her thoughts on navigating an art market increasingly shaped by economic and political volatility.

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Despite the doom-and-gloom headlines, Brito feels confident and reports that her clients—primarily Americans, many in finance—are energized for the coming season. “We speak the same language,” Brito told Observer. “We can talk about ratios, we can talk about alphas and deltas.” She also works with collectors in creative industries like fashion and architecture, who bring a more instinctive, passion-driven approach to collecting. “It’s fun to work with people who have a very different take on the world. But all of them, even if they’re not flippers, don’t want to see the work go down in value.”

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Brito describes her role as that of a translator, strategist and advocate. “Art advisors bridge the gap between........

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