[5] Prior to joining Christie's in 1976, Lash was vice president at the London-based investment bank S. G. Warburg & Co. - eventually acquired by UBS in 1998 - and was mayoral appointee to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
[6] Christie's, founded in London in 1766, hired Lash in 1976 to lead a team to launch the firm's New York salesroom on Park Avenue.
[10] Under Lash's direction in 2006, the collection of Adele Bloch-Bauer niece Maria Altmann, which included four paintings by Gustav Klimt looted by the Nazi's during World War II and returned to Altmann after a decade-long legal battle, sold at Christie's in a record 7 minutes, garnering $192.2 million.
A fifth and final Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, sold in a private sale to billionaire Ronald Lauder in 2006 for $135 million, at that time the highest price ever paid for a work of art.
[11][12] Eleven years later in 2017, Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie's in New York for $450.3 million, the current highest price ever paid for a painting.