Still, the early days were a struggle. ”I would maybe get seven hours of sleep-and I need a lot of sleep too. All I did was work. I would go to sleep at midnight, get up and go to work and work until 10 or 11 at night, go to sleep and go to work. It went on for years.
”I was doing everything. Looking at people`s stuff, cataloging things, everything. A lot of the people who worked here then will tell you it was a nightmare and that they worked like dogs. I burned out a lot of people and, actually, some people have ill feelings about it.”
Certainly not Eric Grossman, one of Hindman`s first employees. Grossman, now a lawyer, recalls those days with affection. ”We did work very hard,” he says. ”We`d start breaking a sale down at 4 or 5 on Saturday afternoon (in preparation for a Sunday auction), and we`d be working until 1 or 2 a.m. We`d get back at 9:30 or 10 on Sunday morning and work until 5 and then we`d all go over to Martini`s-and I don`t want to say get drunk-but we`d stay out until 9 or 10 and come back early the next morning. It was a young crowd, and that made it fun and exciting. We had a ton of energy.
”Leslie could be a tough taskmaster. She expected a lot. Sometimes people would be sitting there typing the catalog all night to meet the printer`s deadline in the morning. You`d figure out your hourly wage, and it was $2 when all was said and done.
”I realize now that she was under tremendous pressure in the beginning, but she was focused, and she knew what she wanted to do. Leslie would get on the phone and call up anybody to try and get property and business. It didn`t matter who it was. She wasn`t afraid. She auctioned a lot of items from Judge Julius Hoffman`s estate, his chambers in particular, and I just remember her calling Abbie Hoffman to see if he was interested in the auction. That`s part of the reason for her success, an ability to be a salesperson.”
Derry Shoemaker, who worked with Hindman at Sotheby`s and then helped her compile a mailing list when the business was starting, remembers: ”Leslie never says die-never, ever. In the beginning, people would say: `How can she do this? She`s so young.` And I`d say, `She just doesn`t know (any better).`
”
Despite limited finances, Hindman started with an upscale image, realizing that it would be impossible to start low and upgrade it, especially in the fine-arts arena. And she began providing elaborate catalogs and estimates for each auction, a practice other auction houses in the area were not doing, and advertising nationally and internationally. To drum up business, she went to banks and law firms to give presentations to lawyers who handle estates. She called everyone she knew to develop a mailing list, which now boasts 27,000 names, and to ask for help.
”The first big estate we got was a big Lake Shore Drive estate,” she recalls. ”I had told the people that I might open an auction house and asked, `Will you give me this estate?` and then they did. They were really nice, and periodically they still consign things here and buy things here.”
Through her talks to women`s groups, collectors and others about buying and selling at auction, Hindman also managed to demystify the procedure.
”People were intimidated and thought they`d go like this,” she says, touching her nose, ”and all of a sudden they`d (inadvertently bid and) have a Picasso and owe thousands of dollars. I worked very hard to make the general public realize everybody should go to auctions. We have a broad cross-section of people that come here. Poorer people, richer people, great dealers, not-so- great dealers.”
Hindman also worked aggressively to raise her company`s profile, and as business increased, so did the publicity. Hindman landed the spectacular estates of Maryland McCormick, widow of the late Tribune publisher, Col. Robert McCormick, and collector extraordinaire Elizabeth F. Cheney; the bankruptcy estate of William J. Stoecker, founder of Grabill Corp.; the collection of the Byer Museum of Arts in Evanston; and deaccessioned property from the Cincinnati Art Museum. She auctioned federal Judge Julius Hoffman`s gavel, Napoleon`s wallet, a fragment of the shirt Abraham Lincoln wore when he was slain and, for charity, John Belushi`s golf shoes (for $300) and other personal possessions.
One of the most interesting auctions was private. Hindman calls it the
”family feud auction.” She was hired by three warring children who could not agree on how to divide their deceased mother`s estate. She conducted an auction at a card table in the deceased`s living room as the three scowling factions, one tippling Bloody Marys, bid against one another for their mother`s furniture and china.
Three years ago, Hindman moved her auction house, buying a 20,000-square- foot building a few doors down from her original location. She now commands a staff of 60 at all three companies, with a deft-if informal-style of management.
Though it`s a serious enterprise, Hindman`s down-to-earth exuberance seems to keep morale high. She even keeps ”company scrapbooks” filled with press clippings, snapshots from staff parties and amusing memorabilia, such as a postcard from someone asking what to wear to an auction. (The answer:
Anything.)
”We have great people here,” Hindman says. ”At first I was bad at hiring people, and we had a lot of turnover, partly because I expected too much. I expected stupid things. I expected from them what I was doing. Now I think I`m more realistic.”
Hindman herself works ”all day and all night. I work all the time.” Her days are not typical, but there are ”in-house days” when she runs the company, doing ”accounting and numbers,” and the more interesting ”out-house days,” when she travels to look at estates or to give presentations. And evenings often are consumed by business dinners or social events.
When she has some free time, Hindman, who is divorced, likes to host dinner parties for close friends in her Gold Coast apartment. And she recently joined the Illinois Orchid Society because she is keen to learn how to keep her favorite flower in bloom.
Hindman also reads for relaxation, alternating between ”junky novels”
and ”good books,” especially biographies, plus ”millions of magazines.
”In my business there are so many things I should be up on that I`m always frustrated. You can`t possibly know all you`re supposed to know. But I`m a decent generalist. One thing I don`t do is pretend to be an expert. We have people here who are experts in prints, silver, furniture-that sort of thing. I`ve never tried to be a person who writes catalog descriptions. I can`t run the business, get business, do the accounting, do p.r. and write catalog descriptions too.
”Seeing a lot of stuff is the best way to learn about paintings, decorative arts and furniture. There are people with great advanced art history degrees, but I won`t hire them. They spend years studying one little segment of the market, and it`s not helpful. Our painting expert, for instance, knows basically what everything is, and he knows where to get more information. With the Van Gogh, he knew enough to figure out that it was a Van Gogh.”
One of her dreams is to take off a month to hole up in a library and browse through art books to ”solidify” her knowledge and fill in a few gaps. But, she says, the library must be close by so she can check in to the office easily. She has to know if the Tiffany lamps are arriving in time to be photographed for an advertisement and if that violin a man called about did turn out to be a Stradivarius.
And it appears that the future will be just as hectic. Hindman would like to start a real estate auction division. And with representatives already in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Texas, she plans to open branch offices in those locations and, in five years, a few auction rooms in some of them as well.
”I hate to be bored,” she says.
