Emma Santucci ’19

Christie’s Auction House, New York, NY

The catalogue for Christie’s Auction House summer online sale.
The catalogue for Christie’s Auction House summer online sale.

Spending my summer as an intern at Christie’s Auction House in New York has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career. Christie’s is globally recognized as a top auction house with a Summer Internship Program of two six-week sessions, of which I was lucky enough to participate in both. As an intern placed in the Prints and Multiples department, I mostly supported the Sales Coordinators, Cataloguer, and Senior Specialists with their day-to-day tasks as well as working on several long-term projects as they arose. I was in one of the few departments that has a sale in the summer, and had the opportunity to watch how a sale is executed from start to finish.

The first step in securing a consignment for a sale is its authentication. In order to ensure that a work is truly executed by the artists, the specialists will consult catalogue raisonné, literature references, exhibition history, and provenance. This is often time consuming to track down, and it was my responsibility to gather all of this information and present it to the specialists as consignments came in. I became extremely familiar with the library at Christie’s but also libraries all over New York City through having to request these research materials. As an Art History major with plenty of research background, I found this to be a fascinating task that was only more gratifying when I successfully found an elusive reference for a work of art.

Supporting the Cataloguer, Lisa, mostly involved reformatting and confirming catalogue information. I called galleries and artist collectives all over the world inquiring about paper type, proof numbers, publishing information, and more. Learning what goes into a catalogue for an auction, and how, is an invaluable skill when later applying for a job at an auction house. It is a language of its own, with specific rules and parameters. My favorite moments working with Lisa were when I would shadow her in the warehouse. The Art Handler, Elan, would pull some recently consigned works for Lisa to measure, catalogue, and evaluate their condition. These are all crucial factors for the estimated value later decided for the specialists.

Emma visiting the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Museum of Design.
Emma visiting the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Museum of Design.

Another responsibility I helped Lisa with was termed “color checks.” Before each sale, Christie’s releases a catalogue of the works in that sale in a thick, fully colored booklet. It is sent to subscribers, past buyers, and to the consignors so that they can see their work in print. Every work is photographed on site for these catalogues, and it is then Lisa’s job to make sure the photographs accurately depict the works in the sale. A misprinted color can greatly impact the value of a work, especially for an online sale where many of the lots are of lower value and buyers do not necessarily see them all in person before their purchase. Throughout my internship I was able to acquire my own collection of Christie’s catalogues that now sit proudly on my bedside table.

Working with the Sales Coordinators involved mostly working in JDE, the Christie’s specific database. Here I was able to fill in information, and streamline the already existing entries for the convenience of the entire department. When applying to work at Christie’s, experience with their systems is of very high value, and I am grateful for this exposure moving forward.

The project I was most proud of was under Libia, a specialist in the Prints and Multiples department in Miami. When pitching business to potential clients, it is helpful to present evidence of our past performance and major successes. Libia wanted me to create fact sheet proposals for every online sale that had happened since 2013. This involved pulling statistical reports, as well as conducting some of my own statistical analysis, to show how our past online sales have done in the past. I would then create a document with the description of each sale, select some of the top lots and record breakers to put on the first page, and then have our most impressive figures displayed with visual aids on the reverse. Now, when Libia wants to convince a client to trust Christie’s with his or her collection of Warhol prints, she will have a fact sheet from a past Warhol sale to show the client why we are truly the best at what we do.

Image of the Picasso work from Emma’s favorite “Hilling Session” of the summer. She had the opportunity to see this work up close and personal.
Image of the Picasso work from Emma’s favorite “Hilling Session” of the summer. She had the opportunity to see this work up close and personal.

As part of the Christie’s Summer Internship Program, we have lunch lectures every Tuesday and Thursday. The guest speakers are often heads of varying departments within the company who tell the story of how they ended up at Christie’s, and what their role and team is responsible for. These were incredibly informative and helped a great deal with giving background to the company and how it works. In June, we were even invited to watch the live Jewelry, Watches, and Books and Manuscripts auctions by one of the speakers. A handful of speakers were external. I had the privilege of having lunch with Hans Decker, the former CEO of Siemens, and Peter Ballantine, the current expert on Donald Judd, both of whom came to speak to the intern class. Hans Decker spoke about Corporate Social Responsibility as well as his former leadership role at a major corporation. It was interesting to see how Christie’s engaged with CSR and worked to ensure that they were giving back. Peter Ballantine was an academic speaker who worked as a fabricator for Donald Judd for over 25 years. After having read and learned so much about Judd in my art history classes at Williams, I could not have been more thrilled to have been able to share a meal with Mr. Ballantine. We have kept in touch since, and he is one of the many examples of people who I was able to connect with at Christie’s throughout the course of my internship.

In a similar vein, I was able to connect with people across many different departments to discuss their specific roles, and where they hope to go next. I feel so lucky to have both the professional credits on my resume, but to also have this network of incredible people to serve as mentors and friends for the rest of my career. I would like to sincerely thank the ’68 Center for Career Exploration and Ms. Mary Richardson Anderson, for supporting me with the Romeyn Everdell Internship. I am so grateful for your support. I cannot wait to make my start in the art world, and you provided me with the best resources for which to do that. Thank you.