The Barnes Foundation Selects Director of Education
Blake Bradford, former Director of Education for Chicago's Hyde Park Art Center, to Assume Role
December 23, 2008, Lower Merion, PA - The Barnes Foundation today announced Blake Bradford as its Director of Education effective January 5, 2008. Bradford comes to the Barnes Foundation from the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago where he has served as Director of Education since 2005. Bradford brings extensive experience working within the Philadelphia arts and culture community, having previously held positions at local art and education focused institutions.
Bradford joins the Barnes Foundation at a critical time as it continues to teach art aesthetics and horticulture classes in Merion and simultaneously prepares for expansion of classes for its new art education center on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia which is slated for completion in 2011.
Bradford will oversee all art education programming and coordinate the teaching of horticulture courses with the Director of the Barnes Arboretum in Merion. He will also work with the faculty of Lincoln University in Lincoln's new visual arts degree taught in partnership with the Barnes Foundation.
Mr. Bradford brings a passionate enthusiasm for arts education and has broad experience in bringing art to urban communities and diverse audiences. said Derek Gillman, Executive Director and President of the Barnes Foundation. There is no more important role than the Director of Education to a Foundation with a mission such as ours and we have great faith that Mr. Bradford will help usher in a new era of educational opportunity. He will have responsibility for delivering the traditional Barnes courses taught in the galleries as well as for a range of new programs.
The much anticipated move of its collection to Philadelphia will permit the Barnes Foundation to fulfill its mission and increasingly explore opportunities to educate using Post-Impressionist, Early Modern, African, Asian and Native American works in its possession.
I believe that the positions I have held leading to this new endeavor with the Barnes Foundation will serve me very well as the Foundation enters an exciting and promising era, said Bradford. I look forward to assisting the Barnes as it expands its collaborations and partnerships - including Lincoln University - and attracts many new visitors and students to its educational programs and its superb collections.
While at Hyde Park Art Center, Bradford supervised the transition of the Center's studios, faculty and programming during its 2006 move and expansion. He also oversaw the vision and strategy for the Center's onsite school and studio, and guided collaborations and partnerships to enrich the surrounding neighborhoods and Chicago's artistic and cultural communities.
From 2000 to 2004, Bradford worked at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia where he developed programming and outreach initiatives in conjunction with exhibitions of new work by artists such as Kara Walker, Laura Owens and Leonardo Drew. He has also held positions at the Jack S. Blanton Museum in Austin, Texas, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Bradford has served as a panelist or juror for the Black Creativity Exhibition (Chicago, Illinois), the National Arts Education Association, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Illinois Humanities Council, and Three Arts Foundation. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College and a Master of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin where his thesis focused on the artist and patron Katherine Dreier.
Mr. Bradford brings the knowledge, experience, and poise necessary to create and coordinate the Barnes Foundation's educational offerings which are so clearly related to the Barnes extensive holdings from several cultures, said Dr. Neil L. Rudenstine, member of the Barnes Foundation Board of Trustees. I look forward to Blake's expansion of the Barnes's range of educational programs - including formal courses as well as more general opportunities for a diversity of students of all ages and backgrounds. The Barnes has an exciting and intellectually rich era ahead and I know that Blake Bradford will capitalize on all the potential that the Foundation's commitment to Education can offer.
The new Barnes Foundation building on the Parkway will house its world-renowned art collection in galleries that replicate the scale and configuration of the original Merion galleries as well as the precise way the collections are currently presented. In addition, the new Barnes campus will provide a substantial increase in dedicated space for teaching the Foundation's art education programs. The state-of-the-art facility will also include space for a special exhibitions gallery, art conservation, classrooms, an auditorium, as well as a retail gift shop and café.
About the Barnes Foundation
The Barnes Foundation was established by Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to "promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts." Currently located in a 12-acre arboretum, the Paul Cret-designed Gallery houses one of the world's largest collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings, with extensive holdings by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Rousseau, Modigliani, Soutine and de Chirico, as well as Old Master paintings, important examples of African sculpture and Native American ceramics, American furniture and metalwork, and antiquities from the Mediterranean region and Asia.
For more information on the Barnes Foundation please visit www.barnesfoundation.org
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For more information, contact:
The Barnes Foundation
Andrew Stewart, (610) 667-0290 x1567 or (610) 608-6895
astewart@barnesfoundation.org
Ceisler Jubelirer
Kera Walter, (215)735-6760
kera@cj-llc.com
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