FABRIC WORKSHOP AND MUSEUM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SUSAN TALBOTT TO RETIRE

The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) in Philadelphia has announced that its executive director, Susan Talbott, will retire in September after a nearly four-year tenure. Talbott took the helm of FWM in 2016 after the death of its founder, Marion “Kippy” Boulton Stroud, in August 2015. She was initially appointed interim director but assumed the position of executive director shortly after.

Under her leadership, FWM saw a significant increase in visitor numbers and appointed its first-ever curator, Karen Patterson. Talbott also curated several exhibitions, including “Process and Practice: 40 Years of Experimentation” (2017–18), which marked the organization’s fortieth anniversary, and “Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling” (2018), which is currently on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Prior to joining FWM, Talbott served as head of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, for seven years and was director of Smithsonian Arts at the Smithsonian Institution from 2005 to 2008.

“The FWM is unique among the institutional landscape, integrating a workshop and artist residency program with an exhibition program and collection,” the organization’s board president, Maja Paumgarten Parker, said in a statement. “Susan took on her leadership role at FWM with care and verve, her professionalism and high degree of experience and depth of knowledge in contemporary art and museum management were indispensable as she guided FWM to a place of greater strength and recognition.”