Sotheby’s Institute of Art is pleased to announce the 2026 Gavel competition, the flagship pitch event of its Enterprise Studio, to be held for the first time simultaneously at Sotheby’s auction houses in London and New York, as well as streamed online. The event will take place on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, at 11:30 a.m. EST in New York and 4:30 p.m. BST in London.

Hosted at 1334 York Avenue, New York, and 34–35 New Bond Street, London, the 2026 Gavel marks a major milestone for Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Held simultaneously in both cities and online, the competition unites aspiring art and luxury entrepreneurs from across continents in a truly global, hybrid forum, underscored by the involvement of senior leadership and leading voices from the international art market.

The judging panel includes Benjamin Doller, Chairman, Americas, Sotheby’s New York; Harry Rosebery, Honorary Chairman, Sotheby’s UK; and Melanie Gerlis, columnist and art market correspondent for the Financial Times, among other distinguished industry figures.

Established in 2021, the Enterprise Studio fosters a community of innovators in the art and luxury industries among Sotheby’s Institute MA students and recent alumni. An entirely optional and extracurricular dimension of the student experience, the Enterprise Studio combines workshops, coaching, and access to industry experts.

Led by faculty Jeffrey Boloten in London and Brendan Burns in New York, the Enterprise Studio program culminates each spring in the Gavel, where finalists pitch projects to a distinguished panel of external judges. Winners are awarded seed funding, along with tailored mentoring and networking support, to help bring their ventures to life.

The program was conceived in response to an increasingly competitive global employment landscape in which entrepreneurial qualities—resilience, creativity, strategic thinking, and adaptability—are highly prized, both within established organizations and among the growing ecosystem of start-ups shaping the future of art and luxury.

Since its launch, the Enterprise Studio has seen strong and sustained engagement from students eager to explore how innovation intersects with cultural production and commerce.

The inaugural Gavel competition received coverage from the Financial Times. Over five years, nearly 500 students have participated in the Enterprise Studio, with approximately 30 finalists taking part in the Gavel.

These finalists have consistently impressed panels of founders, CEOs, investors, and critics with projects that combine ambition, rigor, and social impact.

Sotheby’s Institute graduates who have passed through The Gavel have gone on to establish and lead art-technology platforms, crypto-focused art initiatives, cutting-edge galleries, and influential non-profit organizations.

Notable past Gavel projects have included:

2026 Gavel Competition Judges

New York Judges

Brandon Busteed – CEO, Edconic

Brandon Busteed is an internationally recognized expert and business leader who brings a wealth of experience in the education and workforce development space, most recently as Chief Partnership Officer and Global Head of Learn-Work Innovation at Kaplan.

At Kaplan he developed partnerships with top-ranked universities that help pre-college students explore majors and career paths, extended Kaplan’s advising into the corporate education benefits space through a partnership with Amazon to support their 750,000+ front line workers’ paths to new career opportunities and supported an equity and access effort enabling universities to provide free test and industry licensure prep to their students. Busteed is a frequent contributor to Forbes.com and other publications and is a LinkedIn “Top Voice.”

 

 

 

Benjamin Doller – Chairman, Americas, Sotheby’s New York

Benjamin Doller joined Sotheby’s in 1979 and in his almost 47 years with the company has sold well over $2 billion in art. He is a Senior Expert in 19th and 20th Century European & British Art, while working primarily in the Impressionist and Modern field. During his tenure at Sotheby’s he has held the roles of Head of North American Specialists and Worldwide Head of European Paintings.

Benjamin has been involved in securing major sales of Impressionist and Modern paintings as well as American, Latin American and Old Master pictures. He has been a strong promoter of works by specific artists including Monet, Rodin, Tamara de Lempicka and Rembrandt Bugatti.

 

 

 

 

Rachel ten Brink – General Partner Red Bike Capital and Co-Founder of Scentibrd

Rachel ten Brink is General Partner and co-founder of Red Bike Capital, an early stage Venture Capital fund based in New York that invests in Vertical AI, Fintech and Health & Wellness. Red Bike is the go-to VC to help founders land their first enterprise customers. She is the co-founder of Scentbird, a Y-Combinator backed ecommerce subscription that raised $30M in venture funding and is a Top YC Company by Revenue (top 2% of all YC companies by revenue).

Rachel was CMO/CRO leading Growth and Revenue, scaling the company to $300M+ in revenue and signing over 74 enterprise customers. Rachel has been a board member and senior advisor for various companies. Before this, she spent two decades as an operator building billion-dollar brands at Procter & Gamble, Elizabeth Arden, Estee Lauder, and L’Oreal.

 

 

 

Vincent Xeus – Artist

Vincent Xeus is a leading contemporary artist whose work operates at the intersection of painting, architecture, and large-scale immersive installation. Over two decades of practice, he has built Xeus Studios into a cross-border platform developing projects that integrates art and cultural exchange. His current body of work, LIGHT\POWER: The Kennedy Women, examines the relationship between the individual and the forces that shape them.

Xeus has also served as Chief Artistic and Design Director of the Budweiser experiential pavilion in Shenzhen, China: RED186. His work is held in private and institutional collections internationally.

 

 

 

 

London Judges

Harry Rosebery – Honorary Chairman, Sotheby’s UK

Harry Rosebery (now the Earl of Rosebery) began his career at Sotheby’s as a graduate trainee in 1990. He became a Director in the House Sale department in 1999 and rose to Chairman of Sotheby’s Olympia in 2003. Here, he continued to oversee House and Single-Owner sales whilst managing the strategic development of Sotheby’s Olympia. Harry was appointed Chairman of Sotheby’s UK & Ireland in 2017, and Honorary Chairman of Sotheby’s UK & Ireland in 2025.

Harry has played a leading role in many of the most significant Single-Owner sales of the last quarter century, including the “Duke & Duchess of Windsor” (February 1998), “Chatsworth: The Attic Sale” (October 2010), and more recently, “The Family Collection of the late Countess Mountbatten of Burma” (2021). Renowned for his ‘sixth sense’ on the rostrum, Lord Rosebery has auctioneered hundreds of charity sales and in turn has helped to raise over £150m for charitable organisations over the course of his career.

 

 

Melanie Gerlis – Columnist

Melanie Gerlis became the art market correspondent for the Financial Times in 2016 and has a dedicated weekly slot. She was previously Art Market Editor for The Art Newspaper (2007–2016) and remains its editor-at-large. Before working in the art world, she was a financial communications adviser at Finsbury in the City of London (1996–2005), with a focus on the financial services industry. Melanie has a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University and an MA in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art.

She has authored books on the art market including Art as an Investment? (2014) and The Art Fair Story: A Rollercoaster Ride (2021), and is a regular commentator on art market trends and developments, appearing on television and on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. A freelancer, Melanie also writes for The Times, a monthly column for The Art Newspaper, and for UBS’s contemporary art platform.

 

 

Patrick McCrae – Co-Founder, Artiq

Patrick is the co-founder and chair of Artiq, a pioneering art agency that is reshaping modern arts patronage. With a mission to elevate the role of contemporary art, Patrick is dedicated to creating new opportunities for artists, expanding their presence beyond traditional galleries and into corporate, hospitality, and public environments.

Through Artiq, he is a champion for fair pay and wider exposure for artists. Patrick serves as a trustee of The Renaissance Foundation, a London-based charity that supports young carers. He is also the co-founder of Queer Frontiers.