Editor’s Comments: An Interview with Beth Rudin DeWoody
Since the inception of New American Paintings, we have worked almost exclusively with museum curators to select the artists featured in the publication. The two exceptions were art dealer Ivan Karp and art critic Jerry Saltz, who served as juror for our previous issue. For this issue, our 2020 MFA annual, we turned to philanthropist and art collector Beth Rudin DeWoody, who has been recognized as one of the most important collectors of contemporary art for more than twenty years.
I have had the pleasure of knowing Beth for a number of those years and, in the art dealer sphere of my life, we have worked together on numerous occasions. I have met very few people in my life who are as passionate and knowledgeable about contemporary art. Beth seems to have an insatiable appetite for looking, learning, and acquiring. This has placed her at the apex of international collectors and made her collection one of the most significant repositories of contemporary art in the world. If you are a gallerist, you want to work with Beth; if you are an artist, you want your work in her collection… It is that simple.
In making decisions for this issue of , Beth considered the work of hundreds of artists. Her final selections are diverse and give a strong overview of many of the prevailing trends that make up the landscape of
