ARTiculation

Sotheby’s expert adjudicates school heat of ARTiculation, the Art History public speaking competition.

This November, ten girls studying Art History took part in ARTiculation – a public speaking competition which invites young people to deliver a 10-minute presentation about a work of art of their choice. We held the school heat of the contest in the theatre in front of an audience of parents, teachers and fellow students, all of whom came along to support the speakers.

To help us choose who would go on to represent the school in the London regional heat of ARTiculation, we were fortunate to have with us Elisabeth Bogdan – a Senior Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She gave the girls much encouragement as well as asking some tough questions and had the unenviable job of choosing a winner and two runners-up from a wealth of excellent talks, ranging in subject from late 19th and 20th century painting and sculpture to photography and contemporary public art.

The overall winner was Nicky, who spoke about Egon Schiele’s painting Cardinal and Nun (Caress), 1912, making a fascinating and compelling case for identifying the nun in the image as Schiele himself! Second and third place were awarded to Daisy and Abbie respectively.  Nicky will go on to represent South Hampstead at the next stage of the competition to be held at the Whitechapel Gallery in January, with the whole Upper Sixth Art History class there to cheer her on in her bid for the regional London title.