was Executive Director and a founding member of the Philadelphia Council of Professional Craftsmen (1967–
1974) and the Founder/Director of Helen Drutt Gallery in Philadelphia (1973–2002), among the first galleries in the United States to champion the modern and contemporary craft movement.
In 1973 she developed the syllabus for the first college-
level course in the history of that field, and over the past forty-five years, her archives have been an inter-
national resource for scholars and institutions. In 1984 she established the Maurice English Poetry Award. A contributor to numerous catalogues and books as well as a curatorial consultant, she has lectured internationally, served as a panelist for the NEA, and received awards and honorary degrees. She is a trustee of the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; serves on the American Board, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Indian Art Committee, and Phila-
delphia Museum of Art; and is a curatorial consultant for the State Hermitage Museum. She is married to H. Peter Stem, cofounder of the Storm Her work in the field continues as she organizes seminal exhibitions for museums internationally and contributes to numerous monographs. From 2003-2007, she served as a curatorial consultant to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in support of their acquisition of her jewelry collection. In 1979 American Craft Magazine stat-
ed that her gallery was to crafts, what Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery 291 was to photo-
graphy early in the twentieth century.
(Co-) Author of our publications:
