Denise Gardner, Incoming Chair of the Board of Trustees

Gardner has a long history with the Art Institute. Not only has she been a board trustee for 15 years and served as vice chair for the last five, she has also been a longtime member of the museum’s Leadership Advisory Committee, a group of Black community leaders who support racial diversity across the institution. She and her husband have also generously funded scholarships at the school and served as the lead sponsors of the 2018 exhibition Charles White: A Retrospective. Her passion for art and her skills as a leader are undeniable—as president and Eloise W. Martin Director James Rondeau remarked at her appointment, “A leader with her credentials is exactly what we need right now to take us into the future.”

I had the pleasure to correspond with Denise during what was an inevitably busy time, as news of her appointment was featured in press outlets across the country. Even via email, her passion for art and fostering youth involvement was palpable as she shared some of her memories of her time with the Art Institute and her vision for its future.

Lauren Schultz: Denise, you’ve been involved with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the museum for a remarkable 27 years now. You started as a volunteer, brought in by Jetta Jones, the first Black woman trustee. Can you share a little about how you first became involved?

Denise Gardner: I moved to Chicago in 1978 when I got married, and the Art Institute holds some of my earliest Chicago memories. My husband, Gary, is a lifelong Chicagoan. We would visit the museum on weekends and he’d narrate our trips through the galleries, sharing things he loved about the collection and the time he spent at the museum as a student.

It wasn’t until 1994 when I met Jetta that I became formally involved with the museum. Jetta was amazing. She had an effortless talent for being enormously but quietly effective in a variety of settings—from boardrooms to politics to civil rights. She was a pioneer, serving on the Art Institute board, and she and her husband owned a remarkable art collection. She also served on boards at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Urban League. Sadly, she passed away quite recently at the age of 95.

When I met Jetta, the museum had just been awarded a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund grant. This was a five-year grant given to a cohort of 23 museums to diversify their audiences. Jetta and Ronne Hartfield, then the Woman’s Board Endowed Executive Director of Museum Education, worked very hard to help secure that grant. One of the elements of the initiative was to form an African American advisory committee—the Leadership Advisory Committee, or LAC—which is still active today. I was invited to join that group as the marketing lead.

Lauren: So you were there from almost the beginning, really, of the LAC. That must have been really exciting.

Denise: It was—and it still is. There’s so much passion and enthusiasm in that group—for developing the African American audience and introducing strategies that engage all visitors. Over the years, they have developed innovative signature programming, attracted record-breaking audiences, elevated the work of African American artists, and planted the seeds of diversity, equity, and inclusion that have been internalized as part of the museum’s structure today. They also helped inculcate a culture committed to making sure the museum is a place where everyone feels at home, whether you’re a member or tourist, employee or intern, artist or maker, or a member of the board. So, the LAC’s impact extends well beyond its original scope.

Lauren: Could you tell us more about how your involvement with the Art Institute of Chicago has evolved over the years? 

Denise: I became a member of the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1990s, and then in 2000, I joined Luminary (what was then known as Sustaining Fellows) and was invited to be on its Program Committee by two incredible women, Jean Berghoff and Ann Kern. Thanks to Luminary and the Program Committee, I was able to become intimately engaged with a wide range of exhibitions and collections at the museum. It was such a satisfying experience. Luminary is one of the few platforms at the museum that brings you to every curatorial department. You truly gain an encyclopedic appreciation. Through Luminary, I co-chaired the opening of Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary and in 2017 I co-chaired the Speyer Lecture, an annual event that features a contemporary artist as the speaker. That involvement led me to join several curatorial committees, including Modern and Contemporary Art, as well as the Woman’s Board, and ultimately the Board of Trustees.

Lauren: Speaking of the board, you joined it 15 years ago and have served as vice chair for the last five years. What are some of your proudest accomplishments as a board member? 

Denise: There have been so many incredible accomplishments over that time. Which ones to highlight? I think back to the opening of the Modern Wing and how the museum closed Monroe Street to offer broad, inclusive—and free—programming there throughout the day. Lately, I am so impressed with the leadership of our board chair, Bob Levy, and museum director James Rondeau. Not only have they navigated us through a pandemic, they have at the same time leaned into advancing diversity and equity at all levels, including board diversity. Members might be surprised to know that the board is 22% people of color and has done a comprehensive evaluation to uncover further opportunities for ensuring that our board reflects the universe that we serve and has the voices at the table to epitomize what it means to be a world-class cultural space for all.

Lauren: In your work with SAIC and the museum, as well as the boards of the Arts Club of Chicago and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, you have been a champion of art accessibility and education for underrepresented audiences. You’ve said that as board chair at the Art Institute, you “can help the museum accelerate its progress.” What steps do you feel are most pressing and perhaps most achievable?

Denise: The museum just completed work on updating its new identity, vision, and strategy document. That plan calls for us to focus more squarely on expanding audiences and better engaging our communities—on offering improved visitor experiences, becoming a better civic partner, ensuring young people are connected and comfortable at and with the museum, and more broadly optimizing our organizational culture to reflect a more equitable and inclusive future.This updated direction appeals to me and, I’ve learned, harkens back to our beginnings.

In the museum history archives I discovered a quote from Charles Hutchinson, the museum’s third president and an incredibly influential leader, who said, “We have built an institution for the public, not for the few.” As board chair-elect, I believe the board can and should help augment and support the updated strategic direction and reflect Mr. Hutchinson’s timeless principle.

Lauren: Thinking about the direction of the museum, what role do you think members can play in the museum’s future?

Denise: Members are one of our greatest treasures. We are so fortunate to have nearly 80,000 members who not only enjoy their own special relationship with the museum but, through their support, ensure that all our visitors can share in the museum experience. I cannot overstate how critical this support has been—especially during this past year. Members truly sustained the museum while we were closed during the pandemic, and they have been some of our most enthusiastic visitors upon reopening. So returning to your question about members and the future, I would say members are making that future possible. 

Lauren: You are a collector of art, especially the work of Black artists, and have been an advocate as well as a philanthropic supporter of exhibitions featuring the work of Black artists, such as the 2018 exhibition devoted to Charles White. What Art Institute exhibitions—either temporary shows or installations of collection works—are you looking forward to?

Denise: There are so many great exhibitions on view right now. Bisa Butler: Portraits is a phenomenal show. We also have a great Richard Hunt show, Scholar’s Rock or Stone of Hope or Love of Bronze. Hunt’s a Chicago-based sculptor; his Hero Construction is on the Woman’s Board Grand Staircase, and now he has this beautiful exhibition on the Bluhm Family Terrace, with an extension in the Modern Wing. By the time this magazine is published, the museum will have unveiled Landscape in Light: The Tiffany Window at the Art Institute of Chicago. For me, this work reflects both the ingenuity of its many creators and contributors over a century ago and the great innovation of the magnificent Art Institute team that tended to its conservation and installation over the last few years. I’m really looking forward to seeing the window in our space, where it is bound to become a major icon.

Of course in June we’re going to have The Obama Portraits, which are touring across the country. I’m so proud their hometown, Chicago, is the first stop. And there’s a really great photography show, Closer to the Earth: Closer to My Own Body, also opening in June, featuring the work of Kenyan photographer Mimi Cherono Ng’ok. I’m also looking forward to the Barbara Kruger exhibition in September. It’s not that often that the work of a living artist inhabits Regenstein Hall. I understand her work will also extend to galleries throughout the museum as well as public sites throughout Chicago. That’s exciting—when our boundaries become porous. Really, there’s just so much on my checklist I can’t wait to see, and to see again.

Highlights from Gardner’s Summer Checklist

Lauren: What about your own collection? Which artists are catching your attention now?

Denise: There’s Caroline Kent, who is based in Chicago and is really making a name for herself. The museum just acquired a lovely painting by her, and I recently purchased both a work on paper and a painting of hers. As a city we are lucky to have so many remarkable artists living here. I’ve been collecting photographs by Dawoud Bey for a few years now, and I just acquired one of his large-scale photographs from his series on the Underground Railroad.

Lauren: You mean Night Coming Tenderly, Black, the series that was on view at the Art Institute in 2019?

Denise: Yes. Thanks to that exhibition, I was able to view the work in person. I’m originally from Northern Ohio, and Dawoud Bey took those photographs near places where I grew up. So the work resonated very deeply with me. I’ve gotten to know Dawoud, and he’s shared with me some of the history of the region, things I wasn’t aware of, which just makes the work—which is beautiful and haunting and done on such a grand scale—even more powerful.

From “Night Coming Tenderly, Black,” 2017

Lauren: Let’s go back for a moment to The Obama Portraits, which as you mentioned are coming to the museum this summer. These portraits of the first Black first family by two extraordinary artists of color, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, offer such an amazing moment for all of Chicago. What are your hopes for this exhibition?

Denise: There is such a sense of pride, of hope, and of history in having the first Black president and first lady come from Chicago. I hope The Obama Portraits exhibition brings people to the museum, especially those who may not visit often, to share in the celebration of seeing these works in person—for perhaps the one and only time they will travel here. I also hope the exhibition will help us demonstrate to people from all neighborhoods and ages that we are their museum, their place for art and culture—and they are welcome here and should feel at home here. I feel very strongly about this, and I believe Mrs. Obama does too, as she spoke about that sense of belonging in the conversation she had with Amy Sherald that the museum will broadcast later this summer. It’s so important to me that young people know their history, and Wiley’s and Sherald’s portraits of the Obamas offer an extraordinary means of connection to their subjects. They’re also exceptional artists that young people can look to now.

Growing up I learned some Black history, but art history wasn’t part of it. I don’t want the next generation to have that experience; they deserve to really know their history—to know about Charles White, Kehinde Wiley, Amy Sherald, Elizabeth Catlett—to know the power and beauty of these makers, and to see themselves in works of art at museums like ours.

Lauren: Thank you, Denise. You are definitely helping to lead us in the right direction.

Denise: Yes, I think we’re getting there. I’m excited.

—Denise Gardner, current vice chair and incoming chair of the board of trustees, and Lauren Schultz, director of communications

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