DON KIMES, Artistic Director
Represented by Denise Bibro Gallery and Boom Contemporary in New York City, Kimes' work has been included in more than 150 solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums internationally. Currently the senior Full Professor of Art at American University in Washington, DC, he served as head of their studio art program for 19 of the past 35 years, leading them to national recognition and a successful campaign to design and build the Katzen Fine and Performing Arts Center and Museum. He is also a frequent contributor and Board Chair for New Art Examiner/Art Lantern magazine. Don has decades of experience leading programs in Italy. As Artistic Director in the Visual Arts at the Chautauqua Institution for 33 years, he led their School of Art to National recognition. Previously he was on the faculty of the New York Studio School for ten years, where he also served as Program Director for five years.
In 2018 Kimes left Chautauqua, where he'd been honored as the inaugural Sonkin-Siegal Endowed Chair, in order to establish the ACI Residency in Umbria. A 2016 Scholar in Residence in the Art and Philosophy Seminar at the American Academy in Rome, he has received awards to be Artist in Residence at SACI in Florence; to work on the island of Kauai; to spend a year painting near Todi, Italy; a US Department of the Interior award to be artist in residence at Yellowstone; a grant from the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes to work in southern Mexico; Eisenhower Foundation support to be a US Visual Arts representative to the Jurmala Cultural Exchange in the Soviet Union; studio residency awards from the Millay Foundation, the Assensore di Cultura in Corciano, Italy, the Accademia di Belli Arti in Perugia, and many others. He has been a guest artist at universities, art academies and programs throughout the United States (a few of which include Dartmouth, Bard, Carnegie-Mellon, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cooper Union, UC Davis, Harvard, Parsons and Syracuse University) as well as programs in Rome, Umbria, Florence, Mexico, Germany, Latvia and others.
Kimes' curatorial practice is extensive, having organized dozens of exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally over the past 30+ years. As an educator and cultural builder he is in his fourth decade as an actively practicing artist who also teaches: more than 5,000 students have studied with him directly, and many thousands more indirectly, in the programs he has built and led in New York City, Chautauqua, Washington, DC, Rome and Umbria.
LOIS JUBECK, Managing Director
Lois Jubeck has managed visual art programs, galleries and visual art initiatives for more than three decades. More than 16,000 full and part time students and residency participants have worked with her during that time period. For over 25 years she has helped to build and support programs for Americans in Italy. From 1988 through 2018 she was Managing Director of the nationally recognized visual arts program at the historic Chautauqua Institution. At Chautauqua, in addition to managing the Chautauqua School of Art, she co-founded and directed Logan Galleries for 18 years. Along with Kimes, she built Chautauqua's visual arts programs into one of the most respected summer artist residencies in America. Chautauqua visual arts programs now include the Chautauqua School of Art, eight galleries in the Fowler-Kellogg and Strohl Art Centers, and the Chautauqua Visual Arts Lecture series. In 2018 she stepped down from her position at Chautauqua in order to collaborate with Kimes to create the ACI (Art and Culture in Italy) Residency for artists, writers and scholars in Corciano, Italy.
Jubeck was also instrumental in helping to develop and support the American University's Art in Italy programs in Perugia and Corciano, Italy. Additionally, in recent years she has organized four Chautauqua in Italy programs in collaboration with the Pieve International Center.
Lois Jubeck received her MBA degree from Fordham University at Lincoln Center in New York City, and her BA from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to Chautauqua, she served in management positions at Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, and the legal firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy, all in New York City.
ROSSELLA VASTA, Founder, Pieve International School
Italian artist Rossella Vasta was born in Palermo, Sicily. She received her masters degree in philosophy at the University of Perugia (est. 1308), and has exhibited widely in Italy and abroad, including solo shows at the Spoleto Festival, as well as galleries in Poland, Munich, Rome, Todi, Perugia, Washington, DC, Chautauqua, NY, Milwaukee, Tokyo and others. Rossella has been honored as Academic of Merit at the Academia di Belle Arte Pietro Vanucci (the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia, where Perugino taught the young Raphael more than 400 years ago). In 2003 she received first prize at the Florence International Biennial.
For the past twenty four years she has been the Director of Pieve International School in Italy. She has also served on the Board of Directors of the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia. In 2012 she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Cardinal Stritch University. Since 2007 Vasta has collaborated annually with Jacquelyn Buglisi and Dance/NYC to present 9/11: Table of Silence. Participants include professional dancers as well as students from Buglisi Dance Theatre, Ballet Hispanico, Dance Theatre of Harlem, The Juilliard School, The Ailey School, the Martha Graham Company, National Dance Institute, Steps on Broadway, and Peridance, among others. This global tribute has been seen in 82+ countries via live stream. It takes place every September 11th in the Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center. It has also been performed at the Piazza San Rufino in Assisi, Italy; and at the Pan Am Flight 103 Remembrance Wall at Syracuse University.