Alexa Bruun Rasmussen turns 40
The entire spectrum
Alexa is Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers personified! She is the third generation of the family-owned auction house, and as Denmark’s only female auctioneer, she steps up to the podium at Bredgade with great enthusiasm during the four traditional auctions each year. Over the years, she has specialised in antiques and silver, as well as acting as press officer. Recently, Alexa took on a new role as a director with responsibility for branding, and she is looking forward to taking the auction house into the future, together with her father Jesper Bruun Rasmussen and brother Frederik Bruun Rasmussen.
An aesthetic approach
Since her earliest years, Alexa has been familiar with the auction house, so she has grown up surrounded by art, design and antiques. She soon acquired an awareness of quality, and has developed a distinctly aesthetic approach to the world. Professionally, her main passion is silver, because it is a beautiful material, whereas at home she likes to have objects of various materials and from different style eras. She basically loves to surround herself with beautiful things that do not necessarily cost a fortune, because, as she says, “Every decent home has something from IKEA”.
A cosmopolitan education
Although a theatrical future was not on the cards for Alexa, she travelled the world with the “Up with People” theatre troupe as a youngster, but instead of pursuing a career as an actress, she chose to study the auction business at Neumeister, Munich; Tajan, Paris; and Christie’s Education, London. Subsequently, she would learn from her father back home in Copenhagen before travelling to San Francisco, where she studied HR at SFSU, worked for various antiques dealers and participated in world-leading art and antiques fairs in the US. Through her international activities, Alexa acquired a sound mastery of languages and today she is fluent in English, German and French.
Heart-felt
Alexa is a woman who derives her motivation and energy from other people, and she appreciates her colleagues’ differing expertise and professional interaction. On a daily basis, she is to be found at headquarters in Copenhagen’s Nordhavn and the auction rooms at Bredgade, but she also travels all over the world to gain inspiration from art exhibitions, antiques fairs and other auction houses’ approaches to dealing in art and antiques.
As part of her professional activities, she is responsible for Bruun Rasmussen’s contributions to non-profit causes and often appears as an auctioneer when various organisations are selling art for a good cause. Alexa is an ambassador for Make-A-Wish Foundation Denmark, which works to raise money for children and young people with life-threatening illnesses. She finds a great deal of fulfilment in the charitable aspect of her work.
Personally speaking
Power, decisiveness and warm humour characterise Alexa; she enjoys many relationships and close friendships, which she cultivates with great respect, empathy and care. In 2008, she married American architect Leslie Lorimer, and they have a daughter, Maxima. Alexa very much appreciates close-to-home values and enjoys being a parent; she sees this role as an enriching contrast to her busy professional life. She loves the neighbourhood around her home in central Copenhagen, where she is often to be seen, accompanied by Lobo the labrador, wearing out the city streets! Alexa’s interests include acting, ballet, opera, fashion and films and, when time permits, she loves to keep an eye on emerging talents in Copenhagen’s theatres and cinemas. In addition, she is an excellent skier and absolutely loves cooking – and then enjoying the food around a well-set table in the company of family or close friends.
Tradition and innovation should go hand in hand
There is no doubt that Alexa has found her niche in life, and she enjoys being at the helm of the auction house that her grandfather Arne Bruun Rasmussen established in 1948. Her watchwords are “tradition” and “innovation”, and with the greatest of respect for values steeped in tradition, her vision is to expand the brand to take Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers into the future by making it accessible to a much wider public.