As she had done many times for Pingry’s Drama Department, Elizabeth Wight Seigel ’03 took to the Pingry stage in November, this time to accept the 2024 Achievement in the Arts Award. Established in 2012 during Pingry’s 150th anniversary celebration, the award is presented each year to distinguished Pingry alumni in recognition of the contributions they have made to artistic pursuits throughout their careers.

The Pingry Alumni Association honored Mrs. Seigel for her work as Head of Private and Iconic Collections for Christie’s auction house in New York; former Drama Department Chair Al Romano, who taught Mrs. Seigel and directed her in Pingry productions, presented her with the award. First, he praised the arts at Pingry. “The growth of the Pingry arts department is one of the most significant changes in the School’s curriculum,” he said, “because it gives you an opportunity to develop life-altering skills which you can take with you” such as problem solving and the proverbial “thinking outside the box”.

For her part, Mrs. Seigel was excited to tell students about her “really cool job” that combines the business world with the arts. She explained that the global “art market” includes artists, dealers, art fairs, and auction houses, and that people’s perceptions of an auction is, indeed, “as exciting as it is in the movies”.

She also made a point of offering advice that helps illustrate how she moved up the ladder at Christie’s. “Figure out what it is you want to do, and what parts of a job you like the most, and get really good at them. Once you conquer your job, start doing the job you want next.” In Mrs. Seigel’s case, she was doing behind-the-scenes administrative work and wanted to be a specialist doing in-depth research. So, she volunteered to spend time in warehouses, cataloguing furniture, which “made me the obvious candidate” when a position opened.

As far as the meaning of her title at Christie’s: “I get to basically decide what constitutes a ‘collection’—I have the ability to walk into a home or museum and try to decide if there’s anything that Christie’s may want to sell. Is it worth a million dollars? Is it worth 10 million dollars?” Working with a huge group of specialists—“extreme teamwork and depth of knowledge”—she has helped to coordinate the landmark collections of President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Betsy Bloomingdale, Joan Rivers, Peggy and David Rockefeller, Jayne Wrightsman, Ann and Gordon Getty, and André Leon Talley.

Her final point to Pingry students: “Stay curious!”

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Read about Mrs. Seigel’s career and her recent multi-year project for Sir Elton John in the Summer 2024 issue of The Pingry Review.


Contact: Greg Waxberg ’96, Communications Writer, Editor of The Pingry Review