Courtney J. Martin, 2024. Photo by Mara Lavitt
Courtney J. Martin is the first Black person to lead
a major artist-endowed foundation
ONE OF THE MOST PROMINENT artist-endowed foundations has a new leader. The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation announced the appointment of Courtney J. Martin as executive director in February. A curator and art historian, Martin joined the Rauschenberg Foundation from the Yale Center for British Art at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., where she had served as the Paul Mellon Director since 2019.
Martin’s appointment is historic. Succeeding Kathy Halbreich, who was executive director of the Rauschenberg Foundation from 2017 to 2023, Martin is only the third person to helm the organization. She began working informally with the New York-based foundation in the spring and officially started in July. In her new role at the Rauschenberg Foundation, Martin is the first Black person to lead a major artist-endowed foundation in the United States, according to the Aspen Institute.
Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) believed painting should reflect art and life and artists have the capacity to spur social change. A leading artist of his generation, Rauschenberg established his eponymous foundation in 1990 to advance his legacy and provide opportunities for a new generations of artists, scholars, and community-oriented creatives. Today, the organization’s assets of nearly half a billion dollars support grants, a residency program, and a variety of collaborations.
“The Foundation is truly honored and indeed thrilled to welcome Courtney as its next Executive Director. She comes to the Foundation as a seasoned and highly respected leader, a brilliant scholar, and a creatively strategic thinker. And she joins us at a particularly vital moment,” Board Member Michael Straus said in a statement. (Straus was board chair when the appointment was announced).
“Over the past 5+ years, under Kathy Halbreich’s visionary leadership, the Foundation not only weathered many adverse impacts of the pandemic, but emerged both stronger and more cohesive. The Board, the staff and our gallery, museum and other friends and partners therefore all look forward to Courtney’s leadership in furthering the catalogue raisonné project; reopening and expanding the scope of the residency programs on Captiva Island; developing innovative opportunities to present Bob’s works in the world; expanding our already vigorous philanthropy initiatives; and focusing on creative ways to celebrate the artist’s centennial in 2025.”
Courtney J. Martin “comes to the Foundation as a seasoned and highly respected leader, a brilliant scholar, and a creatively strategic thinker. And she joins us at a particularly vital moment.”
— Board Member Michael Straus
MARTIN BRINGS A BROAD RANGE of leadership experience to her new role and a background working across museums, universities, and foundations. Over the past five years (2019-24), Martin steered the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) through the challenges of the pandemic and developed and oversaw a range of programs and exhibitions. Select projects included solo shows dedicated to Bridget Riley and Marc Quinn; “The Hilton Als Series: Njideka Akunyili Crosby,” a touring exhibition also presented at The Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif.; and a two-day symposium exploring the practice of acclaimed artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen. Martin also established the Henry Moore Foundation Artist in Residence program for Yale art students and collaborated with the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) on a new joint postdoctoral fellowship.
Prior to joining YCBA, Martin was at the New York-based Dia Art Foundation. She began working with Dia in 2015, organizing an exhibition of Robert Ryman as an adjunct curator. In 2017, she was appointed deputy director and chief curator of Dia, joining the senior management team with a portfolio spanning exhibitions, collections, and acquisitions. Martin worked on several key exhibitions at Dia, overseeing solo shows of Dan Flavin, Dorothea Rockburne, and a long-term installation of works by renowned abstract artist Sam Gilliam that was on view from 2019 to 2022.
Martin was born and raised in Nashville, Tenn. She is also an alum of Yale University. Her tenure at YCBA began a decade after she earned a Ph.D., in art history from the Yale (2009). During her graduate studies, Martin contributed to the exhibition “Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds,” which was presented at YCBA in 2007.
Earlier in her career, before pursuing her doctorate, Martin worked at the Ford Foundation on the media, arts, and culture team. She later taught at the University of California, Berkeley (2009-10), Vanderbilt University (2010-13), and Brown University (2013-17). During her years as a professor, Martin worked on an array of exhibitions and projects. She organized “Drop, Roll, Slide, Drip…Frank Bowling’s Poured Paintings 1973–1978” at Tate Britain in 2012, and co-led a research project on English-born, American art critic Lawrence Alloway at the Getty Research Institute, from 2008 to 2015. Martin has also authored or contributed to many publications, including “Four Generations: The Joyner / Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art,” and more recently “Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way,” and “Barbara Chase-Riboud Monumentale: The Bronzes.”
“In addition to Courtney’s superb qualifications to lead the Foundation’s art stewardship and cultural philanthropy mission, one cannot ignore the fact that among the larger Artist-Endowed Foundations, a group within which the Rauschenberg Foundation sits squarely, she will be only the second leader of color (Gil Vazquez, Keith Haring Foundation is the other) and the first one who is Black,” Christine J. Vincent, managing director of the The Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundations Initiative (AEFI) told Culture Type via email.
“Robert Rauschenberg was both a visionary artist and a person of great generosity of spirit. His extensive output has long inspired me as an art historian.” — Courtney J. Martin
BORN IN PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS, Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York, where his friends and collaborators included Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, and Merce Cunningham. Rauschenberg also spent time on Captiva Island in Florida (where the foundation offers a residency). A painter and sculptor who worked in several other mediums including printmaking, photography, and performance, he was primarily known for his Combines (1954-64), a body of works assembled with a variety of materials and objects.
The foundation’s website further describes the artist: “Working in a wide range of subjects, styles, materials, and techniques, Rauschenberg has been called a forerunner of essentially every postwar movement since Abstract Expressionism. He remained, however, independent of any particular affiliation. The celebrated Combines, begun in the mid-1950s, brought real-world images and objects into the realm of abstract painting and countered sanctioned divisions between painting and sculpture. These works established the artist’s ongoing dialogue between mediums, between the handmade and the readymade, and between the gestural brushstroke and the mechanically reproduced image.”
The Rauschenberg Foundation is among the nation’s top artist-endowed foundations in terms of assets with many of organizations associated with the most significant 20th century American artists operating with hundreds of millions of dollars. According to its nonprofit 2022 990-PF filing, the Rauschenberg Foundation’s net assets are $493,745,496, second only to the Cy Twombly Foundation, whose net assets for the same filing period are recorded at $1.5 billion. (By contrast, the foundations of prominent African American artists have exponentially fewer assets, arguably reflecting the vast discrepancy in the market value of their work in their lifetimes, when their foundations were formed, and posthumously.) Providing further context, a selection of more than a dozen artist-endowed foundations are listed below, beginning with the nonprofits with the greatest resources:
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ARTIST-ENDOWED FOUNDATIONS, NET ASSETS (2022 990-PF)
- Cy Twombly Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $1,502,631,851
- Robert Rauscheberg Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $493,745,496
- Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York, N.Y. | $372,909,150
- Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $192,715,001
- Louis Calder Foundation, Denver, Colo. | $171,380,883
- Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $166,162,178
- Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $144,149,649
- Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $81,268,494
- Keith Haring Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $65,462,211
- Pollock Krasner Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $65,371,452
- Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Conn. | $28,541,524
- Gordon Parks Foundation, Pleasantville, N.Y. | $22,149,535
- Romare Bearden Foundation, New York, N.Y. | $2,639,381
- Jacob & Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle, Wash. | $867,623
- Noah Purifoy Foundation, Culver City, Calif. | $515,750
Source: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer
EARLIER THIS YEAR, the Rauschenberg foundation announced 2024 grants for its Artists Council and Black and Indigenous Land Rights and Agriculture Initiative with more than $1.4 million in awards distributed to 27 organizations committed to artistic and community-based endeavors. The foundation also announced seven international recipients of its 2024 Archives Research Residency, providing opportunities to conduct research at the Rauschenberg Foundation Archives in New York City, along with a modest stipend for travel and accommodations (ranging from $500-$3,000).
The foundation is governed by a 10-member board of directors including Peter Kraus (chair), Christopher Rauschenberg (president), Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, JK Brown, Michelle Coffey, AC Hudgins, Kellie Jones, Glenn Ligon, Glenn Lowry, and Michael Straus. In October, the foundation is welcoming a new chief operating officer in October. Martin, who has been on board a couple of months now, described her latest opportunity as “unparalleled.”
“Robert Rauschenberg was both a visionary artist and a person of great generosity of spirit. His extensive output has long inspired me as an art historian,” Martin said in a statement. “The opportunity to lead the foundation that he envisioned is unparalleled. I particularly look forward to returning to working closely with and for artists, as well as expanding the Foundation’s dynamic philanthropic initiatives.” CT
Disclosure: Culture Type received a board discretionary grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in 2021
FIND MORE about Robert Rauschenberg his legacy support of many artists and artistic projects on the foundation’s website and Instagram
“Robert Rauschenberg: Arcanum” is on view at Gladstone Gallery in New York, N.Y., from Sept. 21-Nov. 2, 2024
FIND MORE about “Taking Venice,” a new documentary exploring Robert Rauschenberg’s Golden Lion win at the 1964 Venice Biennale
BOOKSHELF
Over the course of her career, Courtney J. Martin has been involved with an expansive selection of publications exploring the work of a variety of American, British, and European artists, including “Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way” and “Hurvin Anderson” from Rizzoli, as well as “Barbara Chase-Riboud Monumentale: The Bronzes,” a comprehensive exploration of the artist’s work, from the 1950s to present. Martin co-authored “Wangechi Mutu” and “Cecily Brown,” from the Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series. She wrote the introduction to “Richard Hunt,” the recently published, definitive volume documenting the Chicago sculptor’s work and career. Martin edited a major volume about an important private collection: “Four Generations: The Joyner / Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art.” She was co-editor of “Lawrence Alloway: Critic and Curator” (Getty Publications, 2015, winner of the 2016 Historians of British Art Book Award) and also contributed to “Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence,” and “Jack Whitten: The Greek Alphabet Series,” and “Renate Aller: The Space Between Memory and Expectation,” among other publications.
