If you couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to watch Charlotte York sell a piece of art, now you have your chance: the newest episode of the TV series And Just Like That … features a scene in which she peddles a painting by Alex Israel, the artist whose airbrushed images of himself and California skies have proven a hit with the market.
This latest episode, which premiered on Thursday, features Charlotte at work, newly returned to the world of art dealing after a decades-long hiatus spent building a home. There she is at the fictional Kasabian Gallery, surrounded by Israel paintings when the pop star Sam Smith, playing themselves, walks in.
“This Alex Israel,” Charlotte says, motioning Smith over to an Israel self-portrait, “it has the Pop sensibility that we talked about. And, like you, he uses his identity in his art.”
“I really like it,” Smith says.
“Do you!” Charlotte exclaims, as fashion designer Jeffrey C. Williams, Smith’s real-life friend who is here also playing themselves, nods in endorsement. It’s a match, and Charlotte makes the sale for $100,000—which, all things considered, seems to be about average for a work by Israel, whose art once sold for more than $1 million at auction.
This is the latest turn in Charlotte’s arc as a dealer, which goes all the way back to the original Sex and the City. In the pilot episode, after a date, Charlotte goes back to a date’s apartment to appraise a 1989 Ross Bleckner painting, which she says “could easily go for a hundred grand—Ross is so hot right now.” (The same guy brings Samantha back to his place to see the work as well after Charlotte goes home for the evening.) In one episode from 1999, she was taken in by a group of Prada-wearing women gallerists who were termed the “power lesbians.” And, in another episode from the following year, her job at the gallery leads her to end up posing in drag for a photographer.
Israel himself posted footage of the And Just Like That … scene on Instagram, tagging the art collector Candace Carmel Barasch. The New York Times once reported that she owned an Israel self-portrait that had been executed by prop makers at Warner Bros. In that report, Barasch asked, “Is it a prop or a piece of art?” She also revealed that Israel had made her a work based on McLovin’s ID from Superbad.