Young Alums Get a Taste of European Art

or three and a half weeks this past June and July, three young Vassar alums who had worked at Vassar’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center while they were students traveled to Europe with Bart Thurber, the Anne Hendricks Bass Director at the Loeb, to immerse themselves in the art world.

The alums, Betsy Subiros ’25, Emma Larson ’25, and Kathleen Chang ’25, were the first to participate in the Jamee Gregory Summer Research Program, established by Jamee Tucker Gregory ’70 and her spouse, Peter Gregory, both dedicated patrons of the arts. The young alums engaged with curators, conservators, and directors of museums and galleries in the Czech Republic and Austria.

Thurber said Subiros, Larson, and Chang were chosen for the trip because they had worked at the Loeb all four years while at Vassar and had taken his Museum Studies seminar.

“This gift from the Gregorys is giving us the opportunity to have our students or young alums conduct primary research at overseas museums that in many ways are different from ours,” he said.

Jamee Tucker Gregory ’70 said she was thrilled to learn how much the young alums had enjoyed the trip. She had first experienced viewing art in Europe during a summer session sponsored by Sarah Lawrence College while she was a student at Vassar. A French major and art history minor, Gregory spent part of that summer in Paris and visited the Louvre. “Many students don’t have such an opportunity, seeing works of art firsthand, and nothing can compare to that,” she said. “That experience opened my eyes in so many ways, so I see this gift to the Loeb as a way to give back for my Vassar experience, and Bart’s connections in Europe meant he knew which collections ought to be seen.

“The Loebs were friends of my family,” Gregory continued, “so there was a wonderful synergy to all of this.”

Hear what our alums had to say …

Registrar
Arcadia Art Consultancy, Charlotte, NC

“I first heard about this opportunity when I was working at the Loeb in the winter of my senior year, and then Kathleen and Betsy and I started having dinners together and talked about our plans for the trip. Bart said we’d be the first of many to go on this trip and that we’d be talking afterward about our experiences to get a good sense of what we liked and perhaps what should be eliminated on the next trip, to make future trips more effective for students and alums. At its core, it was sort of an art history and cultural studies trip, engaging with museum professionals to learn about the culture and the history of the locations we visited and how different museums and cultural institutions work. My current job involves advising clients what to do with the art they have acquired, and I got a chance in Europe to see how public-facing institutions do this. Definitely, a lot of things about the trip helped me in my job, especially [visiting] contemporary museums and art spaces because a lot of what I’m engaged in involves contemporary art.”

Former Docent
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

“Being the first group to do this, we got to meet with people at a lot of different museums and collections, seeing the back end of museum operations, or going to shows and talking about what we liked with someone in charge of the show. We also had the opportunity to explore Prague and learn more about the city’s history. And I learned more about how to engage audiences in fun and creative ways. I didn’t have an answer to what I wanted to pursue in my career, but now I realize that what draws me into museums the most is the audience engagement part. What made the trip special for me was that it wasn’t a traditional research trip but rather a time when we all experienced these things together, just talking about art in a bubble for a month alongside people who are also passionate about art.”

Collections and Registrarial Fellow
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

“I remember getting an email from Bart about the trip as I was walking back to Ferry House one day during my senior year. I saw it as an opportunity to do something quite different from studying or working at Vassar, to go abroad and get a behind-the-scenes look at museums and how they work over there. I applied to work at the Loeb my very first week on campus, and the next four years there really informed me about what I want to do as a career going forward. My Venice experience [Subiros, Larson, and two Loeb student employees had analyzed exhibits at the renowned Venice Biennale in 2024] and now this one really showed me how many different museums operate. A highlight of the trip for me was meeting Dr. Jonathan Fine, Director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum [Vienna], who had been mentored by Bart when he was a grad student at Princeton and Bart worked at the museum there. I learned so much observing their conversation over dinner one night.”