Saturday, March 29, marked the Claremont Art Equity Initiative’s (CAEI) first major event as a new and emerging club at the 5Cs. More than 75 guests, including students and the wider Claremont community, gathered on the rooftop of the Kravis Center for a silent auction of student artwork.
Guests milled around looking at students’ work, eating hors d’oeuvres and placing bids using the bid sheets beside each piece. Some artists stood by their pieces and answered questions as guests gathered around to observe.
The event featured around 25 pieces of art by 15 different student artists, with mediums spanning charcoal, oil, acrylic, ceramic and up-cycled materials, along with student photography and handmade jewelry.
The majority of proceeds from the auction will be donated to Free Arts, according to the event catalog. Based in Los Angeles, Free Arts is a nonprofit that helps children who face abuse, poverty, neglect and homelessness through art.
The event featured a wide range of work created in the last few years, including conceptual and abstract projects. Exhibiting artists came from across the Claremont Colleges, and ranged from first years to seniors.
Emily Gao PO ’26 showcased three ceramic sculptures that she made last semester. According to the catalog, her piece “David” is a perversion of Michelangelo’s original marble piece, “Mantle” is an oyster shell and “Untitled” is a ceramic eye.
“This was my first time making ceramic sculptures,” Gao said. “I’ve never participated in an art auction before, and I wanted to see what it would be like and support my friends.”
“We’re really about bridging that art history and economics gap and bringing a difference to philanthropy.”
Attendee Daniel Bonilla PZ ’25 said he felt this event was a great outlet for students to showcase and be compensated for their artwork.
Another artist, Lue Khoury SC ’25, is a “conceptual artist working in the mediums of relational aesthetics and performance art,” according to the catalog. They exhibited three large-scale conceptual pieces, all over 84 x 39 inches.
“I love Lue Khoury’s work,” Bonilla said. “These big art pieces are theirs, and when art is really big, it always catches my attention. I think there’s a lot of depth within their work.”
The silent auction also featured live music. As guests enjoyed the artwork, a quartet of students from Pomona’s music department performed in the background.
“Part of supporting the arts is not just visual arts, but the performing arts,” Kenneth Knothe PZ ’25 said. “We love dance, and we love music, and that’s why we wanted them here for the event.”
Knothe and Tiffany Choi CMC ’27, co-presidents of the CAEI and hosts of the event, founded the club this school year because of what they describe as a lack of existing clubs that bridge the gap between economics and art history, noting that there is no arts management undergraduate major at the 5Cs.
“We wanted to promote art business education within the undergraduate schools,” Knothe said. “They have an arts management major at the Claremont Graduate University, but if you want to go into art marketing work or art business work, you have to be like us and get two majors.”
One of the club’s initiatives is to propose Sotheby’s, one of the biggest art auction houses in the world, as a study abroad opportunity for students. Sotheby’s currently offers study abroad collegiate programs available in London.
The club also hopes to collaborate with the wider Los Angeles community moving forward. They intend to host luncheons with professors, bring people who work in LA galleries to the 5Cs and collaborate with Pomona’s Rembrandt club to host gallery walks.
According to Knothe, CAEI members have memberships with the Rembrandt Club, an organization closely connected to Pomona’s art and art history departments, and to the Benton Museum of Art. Founded in 1905 to support the arts in Claremont, the Rembrandt Club sponsors monthly lectures and teas, excursions, fundraisers and a variety of other events.
At the end of the night, any unsold art pieces were returned to their artists. Choi credits a large part of the success of the event to the CAEI members who assisted in the process.
“It was a lot of work, and we could not have done it without our club members, who tried their hardest to make things work,” she said. “We’re really about bridging that art history and economics gap and bringing a difference to philanthropy.”
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