Kehler Liddell Gallery Photo
Jean Perkins
The Kehler Liddell Gallery has named Jean Perkins its new director. A press release issued by the organization on Sunday indicates that “Perkins joined Kehler Liddell in early January 2012.”
According to the gallery’s press release, “Perkins brings 30 years experience in marketing, advertising, arts administration and personal experience as a working artist. … Her non-profit experience includes leadership positions at the Guilford Art Center, Guilford, Connecticut, The Grant Park Music Festival, and The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.”
Reached by telephone on Wednesday, Perkins said the current economy presents a challenge to organizations like the Kehler Liddell Gallery.
“Art isn’t food and shelter,” she pointed out, which means people aren’t investing as much as they otherwise might in art.
The “amazing” and “accomplished” artists the gallery represents — 23, according to Perkins — are its capital.
Perkins said she plans to meet with each of those artists “looking for what’s unique and special” about their work. While the Kehler Liddell Gallery is a cultural anchor in New Haven’s Westville neighborhood, she’d like to increase the organization’s profile.
Perkins did her undergraduate work at Michigan State University’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences and earned her MFA degree from Columbia College Chicago.
Perkins succeeds Laura Cahn as director of the Kehler Liddell Gallery. Cahn assumed that role in September 2011. According to Kehler Liddell Gallery artist Gerald Saladyga, the directorship became vacant in November 2011.