The Courtauld announces a new MA in Art and Business
The Courtauld announced today an exciting new MA in Art and Business, taught in collaboration with King’s Business School, which aims to equip students with all the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in today’s art market. The creation of the new MA in Art and Business will further The Courtauld’s aim to be the world’s most dynamic centre for the study and appreciation of art.
The MA draws on The Courtauld’s rich resources as a centre of learning about the visual arts, on King’s excellence in business teaching, and on the unrivalled expertise of The Courtauld’s worldwide network of alumni working in the art market. The students will have the chance to pursue advanced study and research on Art and Business from both a contemporary and an historical perspective, and with the benefit of an extraordinary range of experts.
Many of The Courtauld’s alumni hold leading positions in the commercial art world, including Oliver Barker, Executive Vice President and Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe; Mary Rozell, Global Head of Art Collections at UBS; Jessica Beck, Director of Gagosian Beverly Hills; Paula Sankoff, Sales Director at Victoria Miro, and many more.
As well as being taught by The Courtauld’s specialist faculty and by colleagues at King’s Business School, students will engage regularly with some of the most dynamic and influential figures of today’s art world, including gallerists, auction house directors, art lawyers, art fair organisers, art advisors, curators, artists and critics.
Two new members of The Courtauld faculty have been appointed to oversee the development and teaching of the course. Dr Thomas Stammers has joined as Reader in Art and Cultural History. He was formerly Associate Professor in Modern European Cultural History at the University of Durham. He has published widely on topics related to collecting, museums, heritage politics and the art market. His monograph The Purchase of the Past: Collecting Cultures in Post-Revolutionary Paris (Cambridge, 2020) won the 2020 Gladstone Prize from the Royal Historical Society for the best first book on non-British history. He will be joined by Stephanie Dieckvoss as Senior Lecturer in Art History, who formerly directed the Art Business programme at the Kingston School of Art. She has over fifteen years’ worth of experience in senior roles in the commercial art world and in art fairs and is the London art market correspondent for the German newspaper Handelsblatt.
Professor Mark Hallett, Märit Rausing Director of The Courtauld, said: Our new MA in Art and Business is a thrilling development for The Courtauld, and I look forward to seeing it shape the trajectories of successive generations of art market leaders. The students on this programme will have a wonderful opportunity to learn not only from our own world-renowned community of art historians, but also from our partners at King’s Business School and from our extraordinary, high-achieving alumni. The programme is designed to be both intellectually stretching and extremely practical, and to give students a unique skill-set that will enable them to thrive in a wide range of roles in today’s art world. We can’t wait for it to begin.
Professor Dirk vom Lehn, Professor of Organisation & Practice at King’s Business School, said: “King’s Business School is thrilled to contribute its expertise to the new MA in Art and Business at the Courtauld. KBS academics will prepare students for the world of business and enhance their skills and competencies in management. Through practical activities students will learn how to develop business plans and how to convince managers of art businesses of the feasibility of their ideas. We are looking forward to starting to collaborate with the Courtauld on this exciting new programme and to welcoming the first cohort in 2025.”
There will be 24 student places available in the first year with the first students joining for the academic year 2025/26. Applications will be accepted from mid-October 2024.
The new course coincides with the launch of The Courtauld’s reimagined MA Curating course, which broadens its scope to cover a variety of curatorial contexts, including and beyond the Art Museum. These two courses emphasise The Courtauld’s ongoing focus on building career paths for their alumni community in the not-for-profit and commercial art world.