Christie's Education Conference 2018:
Celebrating Female Agency in the Arts

New York, June 26 - 27, 2018

On June 26th and 27th, over 170 people gathered at Christie’s auction house to listen to 70 presentations which chronicled the essential contribution women made to the arts. As Sara Kay mentioned in her inspiring keynote address, celebration is an act of gratitude that bring many different people together. For two days, we experienced just that; the audience had the opportunity to discover extraordinary women who through their activities as supporters or producers of art challenged the limitation imposed by society on their gender. Despite their varied historical and geographical circumstances, all these women believed in the power of art. Their commitment was in itself an inspiration which resonated throughout the two days of the conference. The presentations covered a lot of ground, historically and geographically, but the most important was that people exchanged, shared their experience and their knowledge, discussed the challenges they faced while conducting their research. We all left energized, convinced that there was still a lot to do when it came to primary research so we can finally have a more balanced picture of the contributions of women in the arts. We hope that Christie’s Education can continue to provide a forum where that dialogue can grow.

Convenors: Véronique Chagnon-Burke, Academic Director, Christie's Education New York and Cecily Hennessy, Academic Director, Christie's Education London.

Keynote speaker at the Conference was Sara Kay, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Professional Organization of Women in the Arts.

Please enjoy the images from the conference below and watch our videos of some of the sessions on Facebook.

Thank you to everyone who came out to support the event and we look forward to organizing the next one.



Conference Photographs

Explore the Sessions

Mapping the Void: Agency of Women within Dynastic Strategies Between the Thirteen and Sixteenth Centuries
Chair: Claudia Daniotti, Ph.D., Associate Lecturer, Bath Spa University
Speakers: Claudia Daniotti, Ph.D.; Lana Sloutsky, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, Hellenistic College of the Holy Cross and Massachusetts College of Art and Design; Andrea Mattiello, Ph.D., Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham and Maria Alessia Rossi, Ph.D., Samuel H. Kress Postdoctoral Researcher at the Index of Medieval Art in the Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University

Patronage Practices of Women, 1830-1930
Chair: Sarah Mills, Ph.D. Candidate, CUNY, Adjunct Faculty at Christie’s Education NY
Speakers:
Leanne Zalewski, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Art History, Central Connecticut State University and Emily Haraldson, Art History Instructor, Glendale Community College and Elodie Baillot, Ph.D. Candidate, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Kimberly Morse Jones, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Art History, Sweet Briar College

Visionary Agency: Grandma Moses, Agnes Pelton, Jay DeFeo and Twentieth-Century American Art
Chair: Erika Doss, Ph.D., Professor American Studies, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Elizabeth Ferrell, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Arcadia University and Katherine Jentleson, Ph.D., Merrie and Erika Doss, Ph.D., Professor American Studies, University of Notre Dame and Dan Boone Curator of Folk & Self-Taught Art, High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Distant Bodies: Gender, Performance and Power
Chair: Agnes Berecz, Ph.D., Associate Professor Christie’s Education, NY
Speakers: Nicola Foster, Ph.D., Research Associate in the History of Art, Open University and Susan Lee, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Concordia College and Anja Foerschner, Ph.D., Research Specialist, Getty Research Institute and Julia Ostwald, University of Salzburg

The Place of Women in Global Contemporary Art
Chair: Cecily Hennessy, Ph.D., Director of Studies, Christie’s Education, London 
Speakers: Erika Zerwes, Museum of Contemporary Art, University of São Paulo, Georgina Bexon and Tugce Karatas

Future Feminism
Chair: Eleanor Heartney, Contributing Editor Art in America and Artpress
Speakers: Helaine Posner, Chief Curator, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College and Nancy Princenthal, Sue Scott, Independent curator and writer

Public Agency in Private Spaces: Politics, Painting and Patronage in the Long Eighteenth Century
Chairs: Laurel O. Peterson, Ph.D. Candidate, Yale University and Paris Spies-Gans, Ph.D. Candidate, Princeton University
Speakers: Lynda McLeod, Christie's, London, Amy Lim, University of Oxford and Tate, Maura Gleeson, Ph.D., University of Florida, and Marina Kliger, Ph.D., Institute of Fine Arts (NYU)

Transnational Belonging and Subjectivity-in-Process: Contemporary Women Artists' Encounters with Space
Chairs: Catherine Dormor, Ph.D., Head of Research Programmes, Royal College of Art and Basia Sliwinska, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Critical & Historical Studies, London College of Fashion
Speakers: Kathy Battista, Sotheby's Institute of Art, Jane Chin Davidson, California State University, and Aliza Edelman, Independent Curator

Against All Odds: Women Curators and Directors in Art Museums Before 1960
Chair: Christel Hollevoet-Force Ph.D., Associate Research Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Speakers: Dr. Yao-Fen You, Associate Curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Detroit Institute of Art, Prof. Dr. Rainer Stamm, Director, and Gloria Köpnick, M.A., Scientific Assistant, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Oldenburg; Dr. Wiebke Gronemeyer, Postdoctoral Fellow, Jacobs University Bremen; and Dr. Adrian Sudhalter, Art Historian and Curator, New York.

Daughters of Hypatia: Women as Art Critics, Historians, Teachers and Theorists
Chair: Julia Dabbs, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Art History, University of Minnesota
Speakers: Maria Alambritis, Birkbeck, University of London and the National Gallery, London, Laura Brandon, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, Sally Deskins, Exhibits Coordinator for West Virginia University Libraries, and Grace Aneiza Ali, Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in the Department of Art & Public Policy, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, and a Curator and Editor

Women Art Dealers 1940-80
Chair: Caterina Toschi, Ph.D., Professor of Contemporary Art, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio
Speakers: Deirdre Robson, Ph.D. University of West London, Pietro Rigolo, Ph.D. Special Collections Archivist, The Getty Research Institute, Ilaria Schiaffini, Ph.D. Vice President of MLAC of Sapienza University, and Isabella Seniuta, Ph.D. University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Women in the Art World: The Future is Bright?
Chair: Marta Gnyp, Ph.D., International Art Advisor, Author and Art Collector
Speakers: Pat Steir, American Painter and Printmaker, Petra Cortright, Artist working in video, painting and digital media, and Caroline Bourgeois, Chief Curator of the Pinault Collection; Selina Ting, Editor-in-Chief, CoBo, and Roberta Smith, Co-Chief Art Critic, The New York Times 

Princely Patronage in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy and Portugal
Chair: Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues, Centre of History, University of Lisbon
Speaker: Adelina Modesti, Ph.D. Honorary Associate in Art History, La Trobe University, Maria Barreto Dávila, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Fellow at CHAM, Centre for Humanities, and Carla Alferes Pinto, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Fellow at CHAM, Centre for Humanities

Women Collectors in Britain and America c. 1880-1939
Chair: Professor Frances Fowle, Ph.D., Reader in History of Art and International Director of Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh; Senior Curator of French Art at the Scottish National Gallery
Speakers: MaryKate Cleary, Art Historian and Lecturer, Dr Margaret R. Laster, Ph.D. Independent Curator, and Genevieve Westerby, Research Associate, European Painting and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago

From Bluestockings to the Guerrilla Girls - and Beyond: Mapping Female Associational Life in the Visual Arts
Chair: Kathryn Brown, Ph.D., Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Speakers: B. Kathleen Gallagher, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University and Sarah Nathan, Associate Director, Public Programs; Adjunct Faculty Member IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Ruth E. Iskin, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Elizabeth Emery, Montclair State University, and Joanna Gardner-Huggett, DePaul University

Women and Art Patronage since 1950: A New Agency in the Arts?
Chair: Julie Verlaine, Associate Professor, History Department, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France)

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Christie’s Education provides students with the opportunity to study works first-hand at Christie’s salerooms, as well as in public and private collections where students meet art world professionals including dealers, art advisors, and museum staff. All of the programmes provide a unique insight into the art market, as well as a cultural and art historical framework for object-based learning.