News Stories
Posted on July 19th 2018
Christie's Auction for Year 9 Students
Our Year 9 students took part in a Christie’s auction on 18th July. It was a brilliant day and the students really enjoyed it. They were able to put their art work up in a professional gallery and view all of the art pieces from other Harris schools.
They then took part in some auctioneer training and in the afternoon auctioned the art piece in front of a live audience including Lord Harris, who bid on our piece! We were the first school to sell for over £200, our final bid was £220. Congratulations to Kelvin, Neda, Quang, Emily, Mark, Lee, Daniel and Amila.
Cultural enrichment
Christie's Education started working with the Harris Academies leadership team to create a programme of cultural enrichment for their more able, gifted and talented students in 2012.
Students from Year 9 (age 14-15) attend an art history session at Christie's Education, handling objects, assessing ways of looking at them and then discussing different ways of looking at a painting.
Jacqui Ansell, Lecturer of Fine and Decorative Art, has an extensive background in Museum Education. She spends time with students, looking at one painting and encouraging them to look closely and realise how much they already know about the painting to formulate their ideas about what they are seeing and why it might look the way it does.
How to be an auctioneer
Christie’s Education postgraduate students are also involved talking to the students in small groups and encouraging them to think about what they are looking at.
The Harris students then go on to visit Christie’s auction house in small groups, with exclusive access to objects that have been consigned. They learn about the auction business - how to be an auctioneer and how to place a bid - in fantastic sessions taught by International Director of Auctioneering, Hugh Edmeades and Director of Sales, Nick Finch.
The culmination of the year at Christie's is when the students, having made an artwork back in their classrooms, get to auction it off at a live auction. The catalogue is prepared and the sale room hung with their work. One student acts as auctioneer for their school and the room is filled with excitement as students, parents, school staff, and Christie's staff gather to watch the live auction.
