The Annual Susan Sherman Distinguished Speaker Series brings scholarship and art commentary of the highest caliber to St. Louis. This year’s speaker is CEO and director of the Aspen Art Museum Heidi Zuckerman. Under her leadership, the AAM has transformed into a major contemporary art museum with a new building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban, which opened in 2014.
Heidi Zuckerman
Bob and Nancy Magoon CEO and Director, Aspen Art Museum, CO
Heidi Zuckerman is the Aspen Art Museum’s Nancy and Bob Magoon CEO and Director, overseeing all aspects of the AAM’s guiding vision and mission, administrative policies, curatorial and educational practices, strategic planning, and fundraising efforts. During her ten-year tenure with the AAM, she has secured a budget surplus every year—reinvesting instead of drawing from the endowment; fostered a 270+% increase in operational budget ($1.9M to $7M); and overseen the successful strategic planning and capital and endowment fundraising of $75M for the construction of the AAM’s Shigeru Ban–designed facility, which opened to the public in 2014.
From 2004 to 2005, Zuckerman served as the Chair of the Art Curatorial Department at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and from 1999 to 2005, as the institution’s Phyllis Wattis MATRIX Curator. Prior to this, Zuckerman served as the Assistant Curator of 20th-Century Art at the Jewish Museum in New York. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in European History from the University of Pennsylvania; a Diploma from the Royal Society of Art, Christie’s, London; as well as a Master of Arts degree in Art History from CUNY Hunter College. She also serves as the Art Network Chair for the Young Presidents’ Organization globally.