POSTPONED: DC | Chapter Leadership Award Ceremony and High Tea Honoring Kim Sajet

Image: Grace Roselli, Pandora’s BoxX Project

In light of the developments concerning COVID-19, we have decided to postpone this special event. All registrations will be held for this event and we hope to be in touch with a new date. Alternatively, your account will be credited for a future ArtTable event.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

In recognition of her significant achievements as the first woman director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, ArtTable DC honors Kim Sajet with the 2020 Chapter Leadership Award. Please join us in celebrating this occasion with high tea at the University Club of Washington. Dr. Johnetta Cole, our 2018 recipient will present the award to Ms. Sajet.
High tea includes light fare, dessert, tea and champagne.

As the first woman to serve as director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet (pronounced Say-et) has been exploring new ways to place personal experience and creativity at the center of learning and civic awareness. Not just a place to see famous Americans, the museum explores identity as a social construct that has been shaped in equal measure by opportunity and ability, prejudice and fear. By taking a cross-disciplinary approach that merges the traditional forms of painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking with poetry, installation art, video and performance, Sajet aims to bring history alive.

Before her current appointment, Sajet was the president and CEO of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the vice president and deputy director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the director of corporate relations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Before arriving in the United States with her family in 1997, she served first as curator and then as director of two Australian art museums from 1989 until 1995.

Born in Nigeria, raised in Australia and a citizen of the Netherlands, Sajet brings a global perspective to the position. She earned a master’s degree in art history from Bryn Mawr College, a master’s degree in business administration from Melbourne University Business School in Australia, a bachelor’s degree in art history from Melbourne University and a graduate diploma in Museum studies from Deakin University in Australia. She has completed arts leadership training at the Harvard Business School, the Getty Institute and National Arts Strategies. In addition to 20 years of arts management experience, Sajet has written a number of scholarly publications, curated exhibitions and spoken at academic symposia around the world. Her current interests include the June 2019 study of identity politics, role-playing in online virtual worlds and the significance of celebrity in American history. She is also the host of the Portrait Gallery’s new podcast series, “Portraits,” exploring themes of art, history and biography.

Who’s attending this event? Click here to see who’s registered!

Thank you to Ruth Abrahams, Caitlin Berry, Alexa Kaye and Maria Sancho-Arroyo for organizing this program.