Going Once, Going Twice…Sold on Art History!
by Amory Gordon ’23
Switching from regular daily classes to my ILE project was an abrupt but very welcome change. Since the beginning of May, I’ve been working on my independent learning project (ILE), which is the final graduation requirement for all Winsor seniors. My project focused on fine art auction sales analysis with a bit of art history research. Coming up with this project gave me the opportunity to think about my academic interests beyond the core high school curriculum, and I really tried to use May to think about what I might want to spend my time doing after Winsor.
Every senior works with an ILE mentor for the project, and I’ve been lucky enough to work with Georgina Winthrop ’09 who is the president of Grogan & Company auction house in Beacon Hill. Even before the project officially started, I was able to meet Georgina when she came to visit and share her work with Ms. Macaulay’s art history class. In that class she introduced her work as auction director and the steps that took her there. I found it super interesting to hear about her experience as a Winsor alum and the path she’s been on since.
For my project, I picked a few pieces from the most recent auction and did a case study on why they either sold for much more than expected, or not at all. Much of what she spoke about in that talk has influenced my project, particularly her four key words to deciding which pieces to sell at auction. Condition, rarity, trend, and authenticity. I’ve used these words as guides in each of the case studies to try and reason through the auction results. The research I’ve done has taken me down different art-related rabbit holes, such as how bronze casts are made and the Fauvist style.
As a Winsor student who’s spent the last seven years focused on doing well in classes and building up a resume of extracurriculars, working on a project that I got to choose and design for myself has been refreshing. I’ve had the time and space to think about what I want to pursue in the future, and even test out one idea of working in the art business world, which I’ve enjoyed and know I want to continue learning about in the future. I also think the mentorship from Georgina has been really great. I’ve liked having someone to talk to who’s been through the same transition from Winsor to college that I’ll go through in the fall.
Many people think of the ILE project as a capstone of our time at Winsor, but I think it has acted as more of a stepping stone into the future.
