Building an Artist's Legacy: The Relationships That Shape Art History

In celebration of Betye Saar’s centennial, representatives from the Getty Research Institute, The Museum of Modern Art, and Roberts Projects will explore how an artist’s legacy is built and sustained through an interconnected network of galleries, museums, scholars, and archives.

Using Saar’s career as a lens, the conversation will examine legacy as an evolving process shaped by exhibitions, scholarship, institutional acquisitions, and long-term relationships, with the gallerist often serving as a central point of continuity. The panel coincides with Roberts Projects’ solo presentation of Saar’s assemblage works at the ADAA Fair.

Public programs will be held at the Park Avenue Armory and are included with ADAA Fair admission at no additional cost. You can buy your tickets here. Advance registration is required, and seating is limited.

About

Esther Adler

Esther Adler is Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art. Most recently she organized the final presentation of Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction (2025) in New York, and New Ground: Jacob Samuel and Contemporary Etching (2023). Past exhibitions include Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw (2021), Betye Saar: The Legends of Black Girl’s Window (with Christophe Cherix, 2019), Charles White: A Retrospective (2018), and Charles White—Leonardo da Vinci. Curated by David Hammons (2017). Her publications include the related exhibition catalogues for these projects, as well as Romare Bearden: Patchwork Quilt (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2022) and Charles White: Black Pope (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2017). Ms. Adler joined the museum staff in 2005, and has also worked at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden as a graduate fellow, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has a BA from Brandeis University, and an MA from the University of Maryland.

Glenn Phillips

Glenn Phillips is Chief Curator at the Getty Research Institute. He is a specialist in the history of curating and the international history of conceptual art, with a focus on video and performance art in Europe and the Americas. His acquisitions for the GRI include the archives of Eleanor Antin, Mel Bochner, Simone Forti, Mary Kelly, Raymond Pettibon, Allan Sekula, Claes Oldenburg, Harald Szeemann, Harry Shunk, and the video archives of the Long Beach Museum of Art, VideoBrasil, and The Kitchen. His curatorial projects, often organized collaboratively, include Lumen: The Art and Science of Light, 800-1600 (2024); Barbara T. Smith: The Way to Be (2023); Blondell Cummings: Dance as Moving Pictures (2021); Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions (2018-19); Artists and Their Books (2018); Video Art in Latin America (2017); Yvonne Rainer: Dances and Films (2014) and It Happened at Pomona: Art at the Edge of Los Angeles, 1969-73 (2011-12).

Julie Roberts

Julie Roberts is co-founder and principal of Roberts Projects, a Los Angeles gallery established in 1999. Since 2007, she has worked closely with Betye Saar, championing the artist’s work and safeguarding her legacy. In 2016, Roberts initiated the Betye Saar Catalogue Raisonné Project and led an extensive effort to digitize Saar’s artwork records and archives through Roberts Projects. In 2025, Roberts, Saar, and Saar’s studio established the Betye Saar Legacy Group, bringing together leading curators and scholars dedicated to preserving, interpreting and advancing Saar’s artistic legacy. Roberts served on the Board of Directors of the Art Dealers Association of America from 2023 to 2025.

Anna Stothart

Anna Stothart is the co-founder of Davila-Villa & Stothart (dvs). An art historian by training with particular expertise in contemporary art, Stothart specializes in institutional relations, market growth and sustainability, and studio management. She oversees projects related to institutional placement of historically significant works in support of artists’ legacy goals, strategic market guidance and planning, and the implementation of management best practices in the context of artists’ studios. She was Curatorial Director of Lehmann Maupin (2016–2020) where she provided curatorial support for the represented artists, organized group exhibitions, and was the museum liaison for the gallery. Previously Stothart served as the Brown Foundation Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the San Antonio Museum of Art (2015–2016) and Assistant Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (2009–2015) where she organized the solo exhibitions of Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Meleko Mokgosi, Mickalene Thomas, and Adriana Varejão, and was the presenting curator for exhibitions featuring LaToya Ruby Frazier, Jim Hodges, Corita Kent, and Ragnar Kjartansson among others. She received her master’s degree in Art History and Museum Studies from Tufts University. Stothart served as a core seminar leader of the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program, New York, NY from 2020 through 2021.