Apr, 21, 2025
Board of Trustees and Leadership
Phoenix Art Museum announces retirement of American Art Curator
Betsy Fahlman, PhD, recognized for her contributions following nearly a decade of service at PhxArt and more than three decades at ASU
PHOENIX (April 21, 2025) – Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) announces that Betsy Fahlman, PhD, will retire on June 30, 2025, following nine years of service as the institution’s Adjunct Curator of American Art, a joint appointment between Phoenix Art Museum and the School of Art in Arizona State University’s (ASU) Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Fahlman was the inaugural appointee to the role, which was established in 2016 to deepen collaboration between Phoenix Art Museum, the leading art museum in the southwestern United States, and The School of Art at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at ASU, one of the largest comprehensive art programs at a public research university in the U.S. Since joining the Museum, Fahlman has split her time teaching at ASU and organizing numerous exhibitions at PhxArt, where she has also expanded the Museum’s holdings in American and Western American art. Following her retirement, Fahlman will remain an advisor on the Museum’s American and Western American art collection and exhibition programs. PhxArt will announce a new Adjunct Curator of American Art in Fall 2025.
“On behalf of our staff, our volunteers, and our community, we extend our deep gratitude to Dr. Fahlman for her service and commitment to Phoenix Art Museum and our larger Valley arts community,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “Dr. Fahlman has made an indelible impact not only on the Museum’s American Art exhibition, publications, and collection programs, but also on the lives of countless students, administrators, and arts advocates and supporters with whom she has worked during her time at Arizona State University. We wish her well in retirement and look forward to working with her as a trusted advisor into the future.”
A scholar of the art history of Arizona and the American Southwest, with particular interest in public art, American modernism, the New Deal era, and industrial archaeology, Fahlman has served as an educator and administrator at the School of Art at Arizona State University for 35 years. At PhxArt, Fahlman oversaw the American art department’s permanent collection installations and special exhibitions, acquisitions and donations, and scholarly research, developing numerous exhibitions and collection installations that illuminated the relationship between industry and art, explored the influence and legacy of American modernism, and examined the representation of gender in American art. Highlights include The Collection: American Modern (2024); William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West (2023), organized by PhxArt in partnership with the Hardwood Museum of Art; The Muses of New Mexico (2023); Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West (2021); Philip C. Curtis and the Landscapes of Arizona (2021); and Transcendent Transcendentalists (2019), among others. Fahlman also served on the curatorial team that led the 2021 reinstallation of the Museum’s Art of the Americas galleries, which placed works from the American, Western American, and Latin American art collections in dialogue to demonstrate how artists across North, Central, and South America reacted against abstract styles in favor of representational modes.
In addition to these projects, Fahlman oversaw and contributed to various scholarly publications, including William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West (2023), Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West (2021); and Western Art Associates: Celebrating 50 Years (2018). She also helped the Museum acquire notable works such as The Chasm of Bingham by Erika Osborne; select drawings by Frederic Remington; A Fool and His Money are Easily…. by Philip C. Curtis; Taos Night Scene by Oscar Edward Berninghaus; Ranchos de Taos Church by Emil Bisttram; The Rebel (Elizabeth Ruskin) by Lew Davis; and Deer in the Forest by Marguerite Zorach.
“Dr. Fahlman has made a profound impact on the Museum’s legacy, including its ability to bring historical and contemporary American artworks to wider audiences,” said Donald Opatrny, chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. “On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I extend a heartfelt thanks to Dr. Fahlman for her service in stewarding the Museum’s American art collection and exhibition program.”
Fahlman will continue supporting PhxArt as a consultant for the Museum’s American and Western American art program, working on such special projects as the development, refinement, and publication of a forthcoming collection catalogue, as well as the reinstallation of the Museum’s Art of the Americas galleries in Fall 2025. An ASU faculty event honoring Fahlman and other retirees will be hosted at PhxArt on May 2.
PhxArt will begin a search for its next Adjunct Curator of American Art this summer. The new appointee will be responsible for managing all aspects of the Museum’s American and Western American art collections, including organizing original exhibitions, conducting scholarly research, contributing to publications, designing compelling installations that advance contemporary approaches to the study of American and Western art, and more. The recruitment posting will be available at www.phxart.org/aboutus/careers.
About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and experiences with art. Each year, 300,000 guests on average engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion design, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. PhxArt also presents live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education programs and workshops, an art+music festival, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.