Pitzer College Appoints Emily Butts ’15 as Director of Curatorial Affairs and Pitzer College Art Galleries

Claremont, CA – Pitzer College has appointed Emily Butts ’15 as the Director of Curatorial Affairs and Pitzer College Art Galleries, effective July 15. Butts succeeds Ciara Ennis, who held the position for 17 years. Butts will serve as a strategic leader and senior administrator for the College’s curatorial affairs and art galleries, including the permanent collection, exhibitions, programming, co-curricular development, budget, and staff.

An alum of Pitzer College, Butts earned her bachelor’s degree in 2015, with a double major in Art History and English and World Literature, and her master’s degree in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin in 2019. Her scholarship focuses on modern and contemporary art of the Americas, with a particular focus on Latinx art and the politics of representation.

“Emily brings to Pitzer a wealth of relevant experience and professional contacts from different arts settings, tremendous positive energy, and strategic vision for exhibitions and programming,” said Allen Omoto, PhD, the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty. “As an alum, she has deep understanding of Pitzer’s distinctive mission and values, and I am excited about the new directions Emily will take the Galleries.”

Since 2007, Pitzer College Art Galleries’ two exhibition spaces, Nichols Gallery and the Lenzner Family Art Gallery, have focused on contemporary artists whose practices address social equity and justice. Recent monographic exhibitions include presentations of the works of Gala Porras-Kim, Lauren Bon and The Metabolic Studio, Beatriz Cortez, Candice Lin, and others. 

Part of the Pitzer College campus, the Galleries are also one of several academic art venues that serve The Claremont Colleges, a consortium of five undergraduate liberal arts colleges and two graduate institutions, with more than 8,000 students and 3,200 faculty and staff.

“I am thrilled that Emily will join our community,” said Erin M. Curtis, PhD, the Director at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at the neighboring Scripps College, who participated in the search for this role. “She combines firsthand knowledge of the student experience at The Claremont Colleges with a rigorous approach to contemporary art, leadership skills gained during more than a decade of work at institutions throughout the Southwest, and a commitment to diversity and justice. I am excited to see the impact that her innovative, thoughtful, and timely exhibitions and programs will have at Pitzer, in Claremont, and beyond.” 

Prior to joining Pitzer, Butts held several key positions at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, helping to develop the exhibition program and the permanent collection in advance of the museum’s opening. Before that, she served as the assistant director of Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Texas. 

At Pitzer, Butts will oversee the opening of Jimena Sarno: Las Tres Gracias, which features new work by the artist that experiments with sensorial and affective ways of knowing to challenge imperialist structures of knowledge. The exhibition will open to the public on November 9.