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Alumni Testimonials

Rebecca Tribble  Rebecca Tribble, ‘17

What are you doing now?
I’m living in Manhattan and working at Artsy as Marketing Associate, Customer Marketing. We are late-stage tech startup and our mission is to expand the art market to support more art and artists in the world in pursuit of our vision to create a future where everyone is moved by art every day. We’re a fast-growing company and change is constant, but for now, I’m focused on managing gallery-facing marketing campaigns, supporting product adoption, content production, user research, and marketing analytics.

Can you share some significant milestones in your career so far?
Some significant milestones in my career include helping to build a B2B marketing team from the ground up (when I first joined Artsy as a growth marketing intern in 2017, there was no B2B marketing), co-leading Artsy’s art market research report, which synthesized 17,000 datapoint collected form over 700 galleries around the world and received a mention in the New York Times, and managing the product adoption campaign for selling tools that let galleries complete commercial transactions on the largest online art marketplace for the first time.

How has a liberal arts education helped your career?
In an industry obsessed with innovation, the tools and necessary skills change constantly. The only thing that stays the same is that you’re expected to adapt and learn every day, and I believe a love of the pursuit of knowledge is central to any liberal arts degree.

On a more tangible level, one of the reasons I chose UofR was it’s flexibility when it comes to choosing your path. I always knew I wanted to strike a balance between art and science, and Richmond helped me figure out what that looked like in reality. The art world is intimidating, and asking gallerists and auction houses to share their inventory online, publish their prices, and sell their works to someone they’ve never met before is a challenge. My background in art history gives me the ethos speak with gallery professionals, collectors, institutions, and art world influencers on their level and advise them on how to navigate the future of our industry. My chemistry minor, on the other hand, let me develop the analytical thinking that I use to report on the success of campaigns and evaluate business opportunities. Combining the arts and the sciences is absolutely essential not just to my success but the to success of my company. Although we may be more aware of it at Artsy, the intersection of the arts and sciences is at the heart of the tech industry—you can’t build a product without a customer in mind.

Ultimately, a career is not about the day-to-day tasks, it’s about what motivates you and what you’re passionate about. I always tell people that I spent four years of my life studying the history of art and how it was collected, today I get to write the next chapter of that history.

hayley harrington  Hayley Harrington, ‘12

What are you doing now?
After working as an administrator for two and half years at the world’s leading art business, Christie’s, I now work as an archivist for the internationally recognized watercolorist Barbara Ernst Prey. I am also the lead singer and guitarist in the band Ransom Pier based out of Long Island City, Queens; we will release our debut EP entitled Turn Your Head in July 2015 and then head out on tour.

Can you share some significant milestones in your career so far?
At the end of my senior year at Richmond, I was a winner of the 2012 Arts & Sciences Paper Competition for my thesis “‘Caught in the Circle’: Negotiating Masculinity in Frederic Remington’s Last Stand Paintings.” It was a great feeling to represent the Art & Art History Department. I received such incredible attention and support from my professors while writing my thesis.

Landing my first job at Christie’s in 2012 only a few months after graduation was a very proud moment for me. During my time at Richmond, my professors kindly put me in touch with people working in the art world so that I could learn as much as possible about the field. I scheduled informational meetings with professionals working at galleries, museums and auction houses, which helped steer me in the direction of Christie’s and prepared me for my interviews in New York. 

Lastly, one of my proudest accomplishments was starting my band and publishing my songs. My majors in Art History and American Studies allowed me to hone my writing skills to clearly and eloquently articulate arguments and narratives. Describing a painting in an Art History paper is not unlike songwriting in that you are guiding someone through your particular interpretation of an image, feeling, or era. I continue to benefit from my work at Richmond and I have stayed in touch with many of my professors.

How has a liberal arts education helped your career?
A liberal arts education is invaluable in that it provides you with the skills and foundations to continue learning and growing once you have left school. I developed the ability to write clearly, argue effectively, and think critically. Art History challenges you to consider a myriad of perspectives, which translates well in the professional world where you are often called upon to come up with creative and efficient solutions. Most importantly, a liberal arts education allows you to develop excellent interpersonal skills, one of the more valuable assets I was able to offer during my time at Christie’s. Through discussion and presentations at Richmond, I learned how to present myself, how to respectively engage in difficult conversations and to listen effectively.

elizabeth mooreElizabeth Delaney Moore, '11

What are you doing now?
I currently work at Contactually, a startup for contact management software, doing business development for their corporate accounts. Most of my clients are mid-sized real estate brokerages, so I work with brokers to help their agents more consistently follow up and maintain relationships with key clients.

Can you share some significant milestones in your career so far?
I taught in an elementary school in southern Spain for a year. I lived with Spanish-only speakers, so my Spanish went through the roof. The school had limited resources and at first glance was not notable, but the community established between the school and the neighborhood and students was incredible. With everyone teaching and caring for and helping out everybody else, I learned more about interdependence and human connections than I would have ever expected.

I am currently on the Artistic Vision Board of La Ti Do, a weekly musical theatre, singer-songwriter, and spoken word show in DC. My role is to ensure the show continues to engage and challenge both the audience and performers as it evolves and expands.

How has a liberal arts education helped your career?
Although it's sometimes difficult to see the connection between my degree and my career, I wouldn't have studied another field or chosen to study business instead of the liberal arts. In my art history classes, I was constantly having to juxtapose ideas and differentiate them or find common threads. This skill I apply on a daily basis when making the case for a corporate partnership. All the essays I wrote produced an ability to thoroughly evaluate and analyze ideas, a skill that is critical to my role on the Artistic Vision Board at La Ti Do. It is important that I weigh different options and outcomes before making recommendations that will be far-reaching.

lindsay ganter  Lindsay Ganter, ‘09

What are you doing now?
I am the Assistant for Administration in the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I am is involved with the Center’s Fellowship program, lecture series, and ongoing research projects. 

Can you share some significant milestones in your career so far?
Studying abroad in Barcelona was an unforgettable and transformative experience. During a relatively brief period of time I grew to love Barcelona and its long and fascinating history. Soon after returning to the University of Richmond, I decided to write my senior thesis on Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudí. 

Interning at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in the winter of 2011 was a major personal turning point. Working amidst masterpieces of modern art in one of the world’s most beautiful and unusual cities was an invigorating experience that encouraged me to return to school. With the encouragement and assistance of University of Richmond professors Margaret Denton and Elena Calvillo, I applied and was accepted into the M.A. program at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts.

How has a liberal arts education helped your career?
Years after graduating from the University of Richmond, I continue to reflect on the readings, discussions, and research that stemmed from my art history courses at the University of Richmond. Through the mentorship of Professors Elena Calvillo and Margaret Denton I developed critical thinking skills that will remain important throughout my life. 

carmen hermo  Carmen Hermo, ‘07
Photo: Kristopher McKay © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

What are you doing now?
I am currently an Assistant Curator, Collections, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.  I have been at the Guggenheim since 2010, and in addition to researching and promoting the permanent collection, I am a selecting curator for acquisitions by emerging artists.

Can you share some significant milestones in your career so far?
Opening my first rotunda show in the Guggenheim’s famed Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda. I’m a co-curator of our current exhibition, Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim which opened June 5th.  After working on the acquisition or research of many of the artworks in the exhibition, it was a thrill to collaborate with senior curatorial staff to develop the exhibition, which features 48 contemporary artists and over 100 works from our permanent collection. I was able to show work by artists who have had a profound impact on me—like Glenn Ligon and Felix Gonzalez-Torres—and also work with a younger generation of artists like Gerard & Kelly, Agnieszka Kurant, and Josephine Meckseper. 

Making a small mark on the Guggenheim’s permanent collection. Mr. Guggenheim worked with Hilla Rebay to build his collection of non-objective painting, which would later become the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Today, curators work together to bring important contemporary works into that same collection as Vasily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and Pablo Picasso. I have selected or shepherded in works by diverse artists like midcentury abstract painter Judit Reigl and more recent acquisitions of works by Kevin Beasley, Juliana Huxtable, and Hito Steyerl.

I worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art for two years as a cataloguer of prints and drawings for their massive Collection Documentation Initiative. On my last day at the art warehouse, I searched for my name and saw that I had personally catalogued 11,478 works on paper in my whirlwind years at the Whitney. Now that the new downtown building is open, with lots of room for permanent collection exhibits, it’s been a thrill to see little-known works finally get their due!

How has a liberal arts education helped your career?
A liberal arts degree prepares you for expansive and limitless career options. Rather than define you at an early stage in your life, it allows you to prepare and position yourself as a writer, researcher, thinker, and individual. I found that later internships and hands-on experience shaped my specialization, but that my liberal arts background from the University of Richmond was the ideal foundation for my eventual career.