COURTESY YOUTUBE
After 11 years at the helm of the Art Dealers Association of America, executive director Linda Blumberg will step down from her position effective December 31, the organization announced in a press release.
“The time is right for me to move on to new pursuits,” Blumberg said in the release. “It has been a great privilege to work with so many wonderful colleagues and with the nation’s leading fine art dealers, who are profoundly committed to fostering the practices and careers of living artists and the legacies of historic artists, cultivating platforms for their work, and deepening public appreciation of their art.”
During her tenure, Blumberg oversaw 11 editions of the ADAA’s annual fair, The Art Show, which takes place in late February or early March at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. Usually, the fair is slotted in the calendar to occur during Armory Week, in tandem with The Armory Show and its satellite fairs, but in 2018, it booked the venue for the week before.
Blumberg was the first to assume the title of executive director of the ADAA. In addition to managing the fair, she oversaw the building-out of the organization’s first permanent office space, and formalized the standards and practices for its members. The ADAA has 176 member galleries from 25 U.S. cities, including newcomers Andrew Kreps Gallery, Di Donna Galleries Luxembourg & Dayan—all based in New York—and McClain Gallery, from Houston, Texas.
“Linda’s leadership has been critical to the vitality of the ADAA and the growth of its membership,” Adam Sheffer, president of the ADAA, said in the release. “We are incredibly grateful to Linda for her outstanding service to the organization and her commitment to advocating for its members during a particularly exciting yet complex decade for the field and the arts as a whole. As we search for the ADAA’s next director, we look forward to building upon Linda’s legacy of forging lasting relationships among the membership and our external partners. She’ll be greatly missed.”
Blumberg will be staying on as an advisor to allow for a smooth transition, the press release said, and to help stage the fair, which opens its 30th edition at the Park Avenue Armory February 27, 2018.