Art Business Schools

Back in February I posted an article from the Wall Street Journal (click HERE to read) about the growing interest in art business schools. Advanced art degrees appear to be moving away from art history and moving toward art as a business.

The UK's Guardian just posted an interesting article on art business education, focusing on programs at Sotheby's Institute and Christie's educational offerings. It also mentions a few other UK options.

We as appraisers will probably be working with some of these art business school graduates in the near future, and some may also be entering the appraisal profession.  With that, it is good to know what is happening and the training these grad students are receiving.

The Guardian reports

Jobs in the art market are fearsomely difficult to come by, which is why universities and auction houses have launched their own master’s degrees concentrating on art as a business, aimed at would-be curators, auctioneers and collectors.

These courses give students the chance to study the history of art while teaching them about the legal, ethical and financial aspects of working in the art world. The one-year MA in art business (£24,900 to home and EU students) at Sotheby’s Institute of Art is one of the oldest in this field, emphasising practice rather than theory.

“We aim to give students practical and intellectual tuition, which, hopefully, results in their achieving the required level to get employment as soon as possible after they graduate,” says Iain Robertson, head of art business at Sotheby’s Institute.

Such courses are aimed at career- changers and recent graduates. “We have people who have come from running their own business, maybe as a conservator, and who want to move to the commercial sector,” says Laura Harris, recruitment officer at Christie’s Education, which runs a master’s in art, law and business over 15 months (£36,000). “Then we have those who come straight from a first degree. They have to be very focused, because the course is intense.”

Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s give students the chance to work on the auction-room floor, and some of their graduates move to jobs with the company. The courses also include overseas study trips.

A much cheaper option is the one-year course at Glasgow University, the MSc in collecting and provenance in an international context (£6,950), that aims to combine the serious study of art history with teaching about law and the tricky issues of restitution and illegal trafficking. The course starts in autumn.

Another competitively priced degree is the MA from the University of Buckingham in the history of collecting and the art market (£7,500 for home and EU students) which began in January. It is run with the National Gallery in association with Waddesdon Manor, which houses the Rothschild collection. “The unique selling point of the course is that it gives access to great dealer archives,” says Buckingham’s programme director, Jeremy Howard.

Students will be able to see two of these dealer archives, Agnew’s, acquired by the National Gallery in 2014, and Colnaghi’s, housed at Waddesdon Manor. Guided by experts, students will receive practical training in how to use and analyse these holdings. The MA will investigate American and European art markets and cultures of collecting from the Renaissance to the present day. It will also include study trips to Paris and Florence. This course complements another MA run by Buckingham in decorative arts and historic interiors.

Learning how the market works

Christophe Person had always nurtured a deep interest in art but it took him a long time to do something about it. “I really wanted to work in fine art,” he says. “I wasn’t sure where I wanted to work, but decided that a qualification in London would give me the best exposure to the art market worldwide. I liked the idea of taking a degree in English and I wanted a selective course.”

That is how he ended up on the 15-month MSc in art, law and business at Christie’s with a dozen other students, seeking to learn about art history and the art market. Up to that point, he had been employed in finance and banking in London and Paris, working for subsidiaries of the major European bank Credit Agricole, where he was in charge of investment fund development, and the Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation, where he was running fund management for development projects and business in Africa and South-East Asia.

He enhanced his employability by gaining a master’s degree in management from HEC Paris, the highly rated European business school. He moved to London for a while to work for a financial services company, but in the end, his interest in art triumphed and he quit his job for a master’s degree at Christie’s Education in London, the educational arm of the auction house.

“At the beginning, I hoped one day to open an art gallery myself,” he says. “During the course, I discovered that the art market offers a wealth of opportunities.” Before undertaking the MSc, Christophe was already advising collectors and had made contact with people in Parisian art galleries and auction houses. During his course, one of those, the French auction house Piasa, offered him a job.

Christophe has been working there since January as director of strategy and business development, pursuing his interest in modern art and design. He is organising a dedicated auction in June on contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora, which was the subject of his MSc thesis.

The Christie’s course was both useful and interesting, he says. He learned to appreciate art for its aesthetic qualities and to understand and analyse works of art. He learned about new movements and influences, such as minimalism and feminism, and about how cultural and historic contexts influences artists.

Students on the master’s were taught how the art market works – for example, how important it is to have a validating institution where an artist’s work is presented. They also learn about how artists’ work is marketed via art galleries, fairs and auction houses.

“I had the chance to understand the interplay between the validation bodies, such as the biennales, the critics and the museums, and the market players such as the galleries and auction houses,” he says.

His thesis was important to the development of his thinking. In it he argued that the evolution of the idea of an “African identity” has changed substantially in the past 15 years. African artists have learned techniques from the west and applied those to themes such as identity, the environment and migration to produce work that is original and compelling.

“I am working on building a network of contacts in Nigeria, Angola and South Africa to develop my expertise in modern African art.” 

Source: The Guardian