Lowery Stokes Sims is an American art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art known for her expertise in the work of African, African American, Latinx, Native and Asian American artists such as Wifredo Lam, Fritz Scholder, Romare Bearden, Joyce J. Scott and others. She served on the curatorial staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She has frequently served as a guest curator, lectured internationally and published extensively, and has received many public appointments. Sims was featured in the 2010 documentary film !Women Art Revolution.
Cecilia Alvarez is an American Chicana artist known for her oil paintings and murals depicting themes of feminism, poverty, and environmental degradation in the United States and Latin America. Alvarez's painting Las Cuatas Diego has been featured in books and exhibitions around the world. Alvarez has also illustrated the bilingual children's book Antonio's Card authored by Rigoberto González. Her work is collected by the Mexican Fine Arts Museum, the Seattle Art Museum and by the Kaiser Foundation.
The culture of San Antonio reflects the history and culture of one of the state's oldest and largest cities straddling the regional and cultural divide between South and Central Texas. Historically, San Antonio culture comes from a blend of Central Texas and South Texas (Southwestern) culture. Founded as a Spanish outpost and the first civil settlement in Texas, San Antonio is heavily influenced by Mexican American culture due to Texas formerly being part of Mexico and, previously, the Spanish Empire. The city also has significant German, Anglo, and African American cultural influences. San Antonio offers a host of cultural institutions, events, restaurants and nightlife in South Texas for both residents and visitors alike.
Marion Koogler McNay, was an American painter,art collector, and art teacher who inherited a substantial oil fortune upon the death of her parents. She later willed her fortune to be used to establish San Antonio's first museum of modern art, which today bears her name. Inspired by Modern, Impressionism, and American Art she used her wealthy background to cultivate her eclectic art collection. McNay was able to design her San Antonio home after moving there in 1926. As soon as McNay moved to San Antonio she began buying and commissioning art pieces. The Spanish styled house was able to showcase a diverse amount of paintings including both American and European styled art. McNay favored Art made in the South Western American style. The fortune she inherited was able to fund her art collection which spanned over seven hundred art pieces by 1950, marking the year of her passing. San Antonio allowed McNay to have an expansive estate marking over 23 acres of land. The goal for McNay was to make her museum "a place of beauty with the comforts and warmth of a home."
Chakaia Booker is an American sculptor known for creating monumental, abstract works for both the gallery and outdoor public spaces. Booker’s works are contained in more than 40 public collections and have been exhibited across the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Booker was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Art in 2001. Booker has lived and worked in New York City’s East Village since the early 1980s and maintains a production studio in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Squeak Carnwath is a contemporary American painter and arts educator. She is a Professor Emerita of Art at University of California, Berkeley.
Agnes Gund is an American philanthropist and arts patron, collector of modern and contemporary art, and arts education and social justice advocate. She is President Emerita and Life Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Chairman of its International Council. She is a board member of MoMA PS1. In 1977, in response to New York City's fiscal crisis that led to budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts education in public schools, Gund founded Studio in a School, a nonprofit organization that engages professional artists as art instructors in public schools and community-based organizations to lead classes in drawing, printmaking, painting, collage, sculpture, and digital media, and to work with classroom teachers, administrators, and families to incorporate visual art into their school communities.
Martha Longenecker was an American artist, Professor of art, and founder of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, California.
Natalia Anciso is an American Chicana-Tejana contemporary artist and educator. Her artwork focuses primarily on issues involving Identity, especially as it pertains to her experiences growing up along the U.S.-Mexico Border, via visual art and installation art. Her more recent work covers topics related to education, human rights, and social justice, which is informed by her experience as an urban educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a native of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and currently lives and works in Oakland, California.
Santa Barraza is an American mixed-media artist and painter who is well known for her colorful, retablo style painting. A Chicana, Barraza pulls inspiration from her own mestiza ancestry and from pre-Columbian art. Barraza is considered to be an important artist in the Chicano art movement. The first scholarly treatment of a Chicana artist is about her and is called Santa Barraza, Artist of the Borderlands, which describes her life and body of work. Barraza's work is collected by the Mexic-Arte Museum, and other museums around the United States and internationally. She currently lives in Kingsville, Texas.
Dana Tiger is a Muscogee artist of Seminole and Cherokee descent from Oklahoma. Her artwork focuses on portrayals of strong women. She uses art as a medium for activism and raising awareness. Tiger was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 2001.
Betty Price was the executive director of the Oklahoma Arts Council from 1983 until her retirement in 2007. During her time as executive director, Price worked with eight different Oklahoma governors. Price served for many years as an arts advisor to state, non-profit organizations and a number of boards. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1985 among many other awards and recognitions.
Margarita Cabrera is a Mexican-American artist and activist. As an artist, the objects and activities she produces address issues related to border relations, labor practices and immigration. Her practice spans smaller textile-based soft sculptures to large community-involved public artworks. In 2012 she was a recipient of the Knight Artist in Residence at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC. Cabrera was also a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant.
Ella Fontanals-Cisneros is a Cuban-born philanthropist and art collector with an abiding passion, and discerning eye for contemporary art and design. Born in Cuba and raised in Venezuela, her vision has made a significant impact on the Miami arts community and arts organizations around the globe. She is the founder and honorary president of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO).
Maria Chabot (1913–2001), was an advocate for Native American arts, a rancher, and a friend of Georgia O'Keeffe. She led the restoration of her house in Abiquiú, New Mexico and took the photograph of O'Keeffe entitled Women Who Rode Away, in which the artist was on the back of a motorcycle driven by Maurice Grosser. Their correspondence was published in the book Maria Chabot—Georgia O'Keeffe: Correspondence 1941-1949.
Leslie Jackson Chihuly is an American arts executive and philanthropist. She is the president and chief executive officer of Chihuly, Inc., which includes Chihuly Studio and Chihuly Workshop, both of which feature the artistic work and vision of her husband, Dale Chihuly. In 2018, she was elected as chair emerita of the Seattle Symphony Board after serving nine years as board chair and implementing a number of revitalizing changes. Those included filling the roles of CEO and music director with fresh talent, and taking the organization from financial challenge and organizational strife in 2009 to the stage of Carnegie Hall in 2014. Under her leadership, the symphony won three Grammy Awards and the Gramophone “Orchestra of the Year Award” in 2018. Leslie Chihuly serves on the boards of the Seattle Symphony, Vassar College and the Pilchuck Glass School. In 2022, President Joe Biden announced his intention to appoint Jackson Chihuly to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts.
Amy Freeman Lee was an American artist, writer and lecturer. She was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 1984.
Sue Margaret Cousins was an American editor, journalist, and writer. Cousins was a member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, the Authors Guild, the Texas Institute of Letters, the Philosophical Society of Texas, the San Antonio Conservation Society, and a trustee of the Wildflower Foundation.
Marisol Deluna is an American fashion designer based in New York City who specializes in screen-printed fashion accessories, apparel and home décor sold under the label Marisol Deluna New York.
Teresa Altagracia Lozano Long was an educator and philanthropist, supporting arts and education in Austin, Texas.
