Influential Blog Highlights Philly’s National Arts Leadership
Publication Date: August 27, 2012
Barry’s Blog, a seminal source for news and commentary on arts administration, has released its annual list of
the
50 most powerful and influential people in the nonprofit arts. Three
prominent Philadelphians - including one of WPF’s own - made the list, underscoring the city’s rising stock on the national arts scene.
The widely-read blog is authored by Barry Hessenius, a career
arts administrator, author, and former director of the California Arts Council.
His annual list focuses on arts administrators, funders, and policy leaders who
“largely determine how the debates in our sector are framed and what the
agendas will be.”
Hessenius says he develops the list through consultation
with sector leaders and asks for confidential nominations from the field. The
list intentionally omits artists and private sector leaders.
In his 2012 list, Hessenius places three Philadelphians among
the nation’s leading arts professionals.
- Philadelphia’s Chief
Cultural Officer, Gary Steuer gets
high marks as a “thinking man’s arts leader with ideas that work.” Hessenius
describes Steuer as an important player in “the powerful Philadelphia arts
scene.”
- James
Undercofler, a professor at Drexel’s Westphal College of Media Arts and
Design with a long career in arts education and arts administration, including
a turn at the helm of the Philadelphia Orchestra, is recognized as an “intelligent
champion of the burgeoning field of entrepreneurism and the nonprofit arts.”
- WPF’s Olive Mosier
is included on the list as well. Noting that Mosier is one of the nation’s most
senior arts leaders, Hessenius praises her for grantmaking with “national
application and impact,” and says “other funders look to what she is doing.”
The Foundation is proud to be part of the list, not only
because it includes our colleague Olive, but because it further demonstrates growing
national recognition of Philadelphia’s rich and diverse cultural sector.