Sotheby’s Auction Raises Funds for Yale MFA Scholarships
The sale includes works by Howardena Pindell, Josef Albers, Richard Prince, and others.
The Yale School of Art is partnering with Sotheby’s to host an auction benefiting scholarships for students in its Master of Fine Arts program, a collaboration that speaks to larger questions of affordability in higher arts education.
The 13 lots will go under the hammer on May 15 as part of Sotheby’s Contemporary Day Auction in New York, including works by Richard Prince; Josef Albers, who was chair of the school’s Department of Design from 1950 to 1958; and notable School of Art alumni Mickalene Thomas, Do Ho Suh, and Barkley L. Hendricks. Estimates range from $5,000–7,000 to $500,000–700,000.
Yale’s notable two-year MFA program — which offers degrees in graphic design, painting and printmaking, photography, and sculpture — will cost nearly $80,000 to attend for the 2026–2027 academic year. In a statement, Dean of the Yale School of Art Kymberly Pinder said that the benefit auction is part of a larger initiative to “ensure that our MFA students graduate debt-free.” Since she began her tenure in 2021, Pinder has raised $13 million towards that goal.
“By increasing our endowed scholarship resources, we are not only supporting artists today but investing in a community that will continue to grow,” Pinder said in the statement.
Affordability is often a hurdle for artists seeking a graduate education, and at Yale, scholarships are need-based and awarded upon admission. The School of Art’s admission rate was 6% in fall 2024, the year Amy Chasse, 29, began her degree. The interdisciplinary artist comes from a working-class background, and the School of Art was the “only free option that I had,” she told Hyperallergic.
Without the financial burden, Chasse was able to devote all her time and energy to her practice, unlike some of her classmates who, she said, were burnt out from working side jobs to support themselves.
“This opportunity for everyone to get free tuition is a way for artists to sustain making art for art’s sake,” Chasse said.
However, artists like painter and sculptor Inkpa Mani, 28, still struggle financially despite receiving scholarships. Mani moved from rural Minnesota to New Haven with his wife and five-year-old daughter to attend the program.
Financial aid did not cover their living expenses, and Mani said he relied on public mural work and other gigs to make ends meet. He also took out student loans, and with a dismal economic outlook, he fears that repaying them will impact his ability to produce artwork or dedicate time to professional activities.
“No matter if you’re at an Ivy League school, or if you’re at a community college and you’re graduating with an art degree — at all levels, it’s impacting everybody,” Mani said.
Still, Mani applauds Pinder’s efforts. The benefit auction, he said, is a creative way to move that needle towards a debt-free arts education.
“It’s raising funds so that there’s a future where you don’t have to choose between — are you getting groceries, are you getting oil paints, or are you going to New York this week?” Mani said. “It’s creating a future where all of those things can be true.”
