Holy Cross Gave 10 Students a $10,000 Budget and One Mission: Buy Art

Studio art major Emilia Bertram ’26 says one of the unanticipated consequences of pursuing a life in the arts is having to answer for every bizarre thing that happens in the art world. 

Why did a banana duct-taped to a wall fetch $6.2 million at a 2024 auction? At Sotheby’s? Why did Cy Twombly’s scribbles on a blackboard fetch $70 million (yes, you read that right) in 2015? 

Why, when the U.K.’s richest living artist, Damien Hirst, arranges 6,136 prescription pills like ants marching in a medicine cabinet, do art lovers lose all perspective? And, so what if he hand-painted the pills?

“There's always intrigue — and often outrage — when a seemingly simple work of art sells for millions of dollars at auction,” Bertram said. “As the art major in my family, I'm often asked for an explanation or insight into such news stories, but until now I've never had the words to explain the factors that make up value in the art market.”

She has the words now.

In spring 2025, Bertram and 9 other students in the course  Art Now! Contemporary Activism in Art and Museum Collecting, became acquisitions managers for the College’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, researching, evaluating and, ultimately, purchasing contemporary art for the gallery’s permanent collection. Melissa Geisler Trafton, visiting lecturer of visual arts and art history, and Lauren Szumita, director of the Cantor, taught the course, which acquaints students with every step of the process museums go through in purchasing art for their collections. Students worked with a budget of $10,000, offered by an alum to purchase three fine art prints: “it can be said of them” (Corita Kent, 1969), “Slave Ship” (Romare Bearden, 1972), “Untitled (Stamps)” (Barbara Kruger, 1990/2013).

“Art Now! seemed like an opportunity to examine how contemporary art can exist as both a creative endeavor and as a commodity,” Bertram says.

Over the course’s 12 weeks, and in addition to classroom instruction, the Art Now! students immersed themselves in the contemporary art world, visiting print fairs and galleries in Boston and New York City. They conducted interviews and negotiations with gallerists, attended a printmaking workshop, read and listened to podcasts, and made presentations on artists whose work they would like to purchase. 

And then they purchased it.

An insider’s look at the art world

Art Now! is a new offering for the Department of Visual Arts. Trafton’s reason behind teaching the course was to give students an understanding of the art market; that is, how it’s structured and its economics. The course was also another opportunity to integrate museum studies into the College’s visual art and art history program through the medium of contemporary art. Students also received an education on printmaking and its affordability for collectors.

“The art world scene can be somewhat intimidating,” Trafton said. “We don’t want students to feel that they are outsiders in this world.”
 

“There are so many possibilities for working in the arts that are hard to learn about until you’ve already gained entry into the field,” Szumita adds. “It was really exciting to me to be able to offer students the opportunity to peel back the curtain and give them an insider’s look.”

In this course, students set the agenda. Trafton and Szumita liken their roles to those of coaches.

Mary Emma White ‘27, economics and art history double major, said Trafton’s teaching spurred her to add art history as a second major and ranks Art Now! as the best course she’s taken at Holy Cross.

“Professor Trafton has done a great job allowing us to direct our learning. We have our assigned readings and structured curriculum, but we were pushed to discuss as a class what kind of works we wanted to acquire, what themes we wanted to focus on, and what parts of the mission we thought were most important to focus on.”

By “mission,” White means the College’s mission as a Jesuit institution. In developing the criteria by which they evaluated art, students considered not only aesthetics and price, but also how a work engaged with social and political issues. They considered whether a piece of art might address an absence in the Cantor’s collection or reinforce a value that is uniquely Holy Cross. 

Regina Palladino ’27, a studio art and English double major, was drawn to the class for political reasons.

“I have always taken an interest in activist artwork and felt strongly that art is one of the most powerful outlets to voice opinions and fight oppression,” Palladino said. “I knew that the course would not only make me a more well-rounded student, but also make me a better artist.

I felt myself growing as a student and a professional as this class has progressed.”

The course also helped Palladino rid herself of certain apprehensions she felt at the idea of approaching and working with art professionals. Her first foray into the business side of art was an email to a gallerist based in Philadelphia. He responded enthusiastically, which made it easier for Palladino to speak with him in person at a New York print fair regarding a piece she was interested in presenting to the class.

“Selecting three amazing artworks for the Cantor together with my classmates was absolutely the most rewarding experience,” Palladino said. “After much debate and discussion, we selected artwork that we are all passionate about and feel will improve the Cantor’s inventory.”

‘What story do we want to tell?’

“The students did a really nice job of balancing their interests with thinking about the institution and what gaps need to be filled, what voices are missing,” Trafton said. “And then, since the collection is at Holy Cross, what does acquiring this art mean for the College? What does it mean for Worcester?”

“The students’ impact is going to be lasting because the work they acquire stays here,” Szumita adds. “We offer a lot of classes here on social justice, so we want to think about what kinds of activist works we can show to support conversations in the classroom. And, collectively, we’re never going to have an encyclopedic collection, but we can say something with the collection we have. What story do we want to tell?”

White says she and her classmates relished the opportunity.

“Toward the end of the course, when we were finalizing our choices, the discussions became very passionate,” she said. “It was cool to see everyone so invested in what we were doing, not only for our class but for the future of the Cantor Art Gallery and future Holy Cross students.”

White was an early champion of Kruger's “Untitled Stamps,” a print that mimics the look of a page of perforated postage stamps. “Untitled Stamps” features a single, repeated black-and-white photo of a woman’s hand holding a pocket watch under which is a red band containing a single word rendered in Futura font. The words describe various emotional states such as “relaxed,” “happy,” “hopeful,” and “awake.”

“I believed it would serve the collection well,” she said. “By the end of our discussions, the entire class valued that piece as one of our top potential acquisitions. It was extremely rewarding to advocate for something I felt strongly about and see that have an impact.”

Andrew Witkin of Boston’s Krakow Witkin Gallery consulted with the class throughout the semester and praised the students’ professionalism.

“I was impressed by the close-looking, deep-thinking, and mature commitment to exploration that the students showed,” he said. “They were given a responsibility and dealt with it in a mature and respectful manner that sets the bar very high for future acquisitions.”

Palladino offers this advice for future students: “I would suggest looking at the artists currently participating in larger art fairs and biennials. This will give you a sense of the current tastes and talents. Our art history courses at Holy Cross tend to focus more on work of previous generations and the art canon; this class demands a new approach where you must stay updated on the current events in the art market.”

Spoken like a professional.