Alumni Profiles

Feature Profile:

Heater Urban, M.A. Visual Arts Administration, '03


Brian Ferriso, M.A. Visual Arts Administration, ‘94

Brian Ferriso is the Marilyn H. and Dr. Robert Pamplin Jr. Director at the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon. As Director and CEO, Ferriso oversees all aspects of the museum. He has successfully accomplished the development of a major two year exhibition and publication program; and secured the acquisition of major works by such artists as Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Robert Rauschenberg. Ferriso previously served as the Executive Director, President and CEO of the Phillbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK for three years. He brings with him a legacy of fundraising ability, a skilled managerial approach, and an ability to set and meet long-term institutional goals.

Prior to his appointment at the Phillbrook, he served at the Milwaukee Art Museum in a variety of positions (Acting Director, 2002; Deputy Director 2003; Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs 2000-2003,) as the Assistant Director of the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago (1997-2000,) and the Special Assistant to the Director and the Associate Director of Development of the Newark Museum (1994-1997.)

Ferriso is a 1994 graduate of the Visual Arts Administration program. He also holds a B.A. in Economics from Bowdoin College, and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Chicago. Before embarking upon his museum career, he was a high school art teacher at the Delbarton School, Morristown, NJ (1989-1992.) Ferriso is also a practicing artist; he trained with Frank Mason at the Art Students League, New York, NY.

Brian Ferriso is an active member of the Association of the Art Museum Directors (AAMD,) and the AAMD's committee on Art Issues; American Association of Museums (AAM,) Young President's Organizations (YPO,) and was a Commissioner for the Tulsa Arts Commission. He has also recently served as a 2005 Juror for the National Endowment of the Arts, and a 2005 Juror for the American Institute of Architects National Honor Awards.

Pepi Marchetti Franchi, M.A. Visual Arts Administration, ’98

Pepi Marchetti Franchi is the director of the new Gagosian Gallery in Rome, Italy scheduled to open in mid 2007. She currently oversees planning and start-up aspects and will be responsible for gallery operations including implementing exhibitions and developing new business opportunities. Previously, since 2001, Marchetti Franchi was the Executive Associate to Thomas Krens at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York where she developed and implemented national and international strategic projects including the launch of new museums, international exhibition tours and programs. Marchetti Franchi also served as a liaison between the international Board of Trustees, artists, architects, corporate executives, government officials, museum directors and curators. She cultivated relationships with major donors and Fortune 500 companies and raised significant funds for the museum.

After graduating from NYU, Marchetti Franchi became a freelance curator for Berry-Hill Galleries where she curated a retrospective of works by the American artist, J. Carroll Beckwith, also co-authoring the exhibition catalogue Intimate Revelations: The Art of Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917). In 1999, Marchetti Franchi became the Assistant to the Director of External Affairs at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, where she assisted in an international multimillion dollar capital campaign and also worked in corporate relations. The same year, she became the External Affairs Coordinator at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Her many responsibilities included working with corporate sponsors and donors managing membership programs.

Prior to NYU, Pepi graduated with a degree in Art History from the University of Rome, Italy. She was awarded two fellowships: University of Rome Research Fellowship, an eight month fellowship in Paris and New York to research 19th Century American painters in Paris, and the Museum of Fine Arts Barbara Fish Lee Fellowship in Boston, a three month fellowship where she was a project research assistant to the curator of American paintings.

Lea K. Green, MA Visual Arts Administration,‘01

Lea K. Green was recently appointed Director of Special Projects for The Studio Museum in Harlem, where she focuses on strategic planning, board and external affairs initiatives. Green was Chair of the Contemporary Friends collector group at the Studio Museum for three years prior.

While working towards a master’s from NYU, Green was the Associate Art Advisor and Estate Planning Manager at The Citigroup Private Bank Art Advisory Service for six years. There, she developed and implemented strategies to build, disperse and evaluate art collections, identify acquisition opportunities, research attribution, quality and value for potential loans and represented high net worth clients in related transactions.

In 2005, Green was awarded the Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Fellowship for Public Policy and the Arts at The Alliance for the Arts. Working directly with the President of the Alliance she served as the liaison and advocate on behalf of organizations such as the Metropolitan Museum, Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Queens Museum, and American Museum of Natural History.

Before receiving her master’s degree at NYU, Green also earned a law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. She also studied at the L’Unversite Pantheon-Assas (Tulane-Paris Institute) and received a Certificate in European Private Law.

Paola Morsiani, MA Visual Arts Administration,’97

Paola Morsiani is the new Curator of Contemporary Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art as of January 2008. Previously she served as the Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston since 1999. Morsiani brought such internationally renowned exhibitions as “Wishing for Synchronicity: Works by Pipilotti Rist” and “Andrea Zittel: Critical Space” to the Houston arts community. She has also contributed essays to numerous journals and exhibition catalogues. In Cleveland, Morsiani plans to continue cultivating an awareness of contemporary art within the community, including the possibility of aligning with other institutions in the city, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland. She also plans to expand the museum’s permanent collection.

In January of 2008 Morsiani became a member of the inaugural class of the prestigious Center for Curatorial Leadership, a fellowship program founded last year with the goal of developing a new generation of museum directors. The Center is located in New York City and draws its faculty from area art institutions, organizations and individuals. The program receives financial backing from Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art.

A 1997 Visual Arts Administration Graduate, Morsiani has worked in curatorial departments of such institutions as The Drawing Center, New York; The Queens Museum, New York; Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, PA. She has also curated shows in her native Italy, and at such prominent galleries as: PS122 Gallery, New York, and Art & Idea, Mexico City.

Morsiani grew up in Vicenza, Italy, and completed a B.A. in art history with the University of Padua, Italy prior to her arrival in the U.S. She is married to contemporary artist Luca Buvoli, and they have a two-year-old daughter, Electra. They are happy to be in Cleveland, where Electra will experience her first encounter with snow.

Michele Quinn, MA Visual Arts Administration,’95

Michele Quinn is the Director and curator for G-C Arts in Las Vegas, Nevada. Quinn also acts as a corporate and private dealer, currently overseeing art acquisitions for MGM MIRAGE’s Project City Center and is the curator of record for the Bellagio Fine Art Collection.

Brought in from New York, Michele Quinn has been with the G-C Arts (formerly Godt-Cleary Gallery) since its inception. Commissioned by Glenn Schaeffer (at the time President and CFO of Mandalay Resort Group), Quinn installed a critically acclaimed exhibition in THEhotel at Mandalay Bay with works by Arturo Herrera, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and photos by Valerie Belin. She was not only applauded for creating a space that was nothing like any other hotel on the Strip, but also for bringing world-class art to Las Vegas.

After receiving her master’s degree at NYU, Quinn received an MBA from Fordham University. And, prior to moving back to her hometown of Las Vegas, Quinn had been a department head at Christies and director of the New York print galleries, Brooke Alexander and Gemini GEL at Joni Weyl. Quinn has worked with several corporate collections and their curators, including work with Mellon Bank, Goldman Sachs, New York Hospital, has personally consulted on the Nevada Cancer Institute and Harrah’s Executive Collections. She has assembled numerous private collections for Las Vegas patrons including KC and Toni Knudson, Glenn and Renee Schaeffer and Jim and Heather Murren, among others.

Quinn has enhanced the cultural landscape in Las Vegas, as casinos are seeing contemporary art in a new light. She broadened the Las Vegas arts district by bringing in works by artists such as, Ed Ruscha, James Turrell, John McCracken, Raymond Pettibon and Richard Serra. Las Vegas is now said to be the future hub of the contemporary art world.

Seth Thompson, MA Visual Arts Administration,‘94

Seth Thompson is currently an Assistant Professor at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and Director/Producer of Wigged Productions, http://www.wiggedproductions.com. He is a media artist, writer and educator whose work has been exhibited internationally and shown on PBS. In addition, he has written on the digital media arts for Dialogue Magazine and Afterimage. Thompson's documentaries, Evolving Traditions: Artists Working in New Media and Outside the Box: New Cinematic Experiences have aired on television stations in Northeast Ohio, Oakland, California, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and in Auckland, New Zealand.

Thompson founded Wigged Productions in 2000, to make new and innovative art more accessible through broadcast and online presentations. His goal is to make Wigged a significant database containing interviews with contemporary artists, designers and cultural producers and to showcase video, photography and web-based interactive works via online exhibitions.

After receiving his master’s degree from NYU, Thompson got an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College. He began his career at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts in New York City where he was the Business Manager and Education Director. In addition to teaching at The University of Akron and Cuyahoga Community College, he was a Contractual Artist/Lecturer with The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Associate Educator at the Akron Art Museum.

Peter Trippi, MA Visual Arts Administration,‘92

Peter Trippi is Editor of Fine Art Connoisseur, the bimonthly magazine that serves informed collectors of 18th, 19th, and 20th century painting, sculpture, drawings, and prints. Trippi is responsible for each issue’s development and implementation as well as management of the magazine’s growing team of contributing editors and writers, regional editors, assistants, and interns. He also writes a column surveying trends in the field; guides the magazine’s coverage of individual collectors, curators, dealers, auctioneers, fair organizers, appraisers, and experts; and develops joint programs with kindred institutions and businesses worldwide. Additionally, Trippi operates his own firm, Projects in 19th-Century Art, through which he curates exhibitions, writes articles, essays, and catalogues, and presents lectures. He is now co-organizing a retrospective of the British painter J. W. Waterhouse R.A. (1849-1917) for presentation in the Netherlands and United Kingdom in 2008-2009.

After NYU, Trippi received his MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. He wrote a 250-page biography of J. W. Waterhouse, published in 2002 by Phaidon Press (London), which has sold 33,000 copies. Trippi contributed two chapters to the catalogue accompanying the exhibition A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1997, organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and published by Abrams). In 2002, Trippi co-founded the innovative, peer-reviewed journal Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide (www.19thc-artworldwide.org), and he has served on the boards of the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art, Historians of British Art, and American Friends of the Attingham Summer School.

Previous to arriving at Fine Art Connoisseur, Peter Trippi was Director of the Dahesh Museum of Art for three years and also held positions at the Brooklyn Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Association of Art Museum Directors (where he wrote a history of that organization from 1916 to 1991), Cooper-Hewitt Museum, National Arts Education Research Center at New York University, and American Arts Alliance in Washington DC.

Blair Winn, MA Visual Arts Administration,‘98

Blair Winn was appointed Director of Development of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in May 2008. Winn comes to SFMOMA with more than 20 years of arts management and fundraising experience in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Since 2007, he has served as SFMOMA's deputy director of development. Prior to joining SFMOMA, he was the associate director at Headlands Center for the Arts, an international artist residency program in the Marin Headlands. He also has held positions in New York City, as director of planning and development for the New Museum of Contemporary Art and chief development officer for The Drawing Center. Winn has a master's degree in nonprofit visual arts administration from New York University and a bachelor's degree in art history from San Francisco State University. He is a frequent guest speaker on topics relating to nonprofit management and fundraising.

As director of development, Winn administers a comprehensive program of fundraising for the museum. In addition to developing and executing fundraising plans to support the SFMOMA's operations, exhibitions, endowment, and other special projects, he manages the museum's development staff of 32, responsible for raising the contributed portion of the museum's $33 million annual operating budget. He coordinates the work of the fundraising staff with other departments within the museum and oversees the activities of the museum's interest groups and volunteer fundraising auxiliaries. In this capacity, Winn works closely with the institution's Board of Trustees and senior staff. He is also a member of the director's cabinet.