Monumental: Architects of Being Art Talk

Non-profit founder, executive director, researcher, designer, and writer, Maria Isak Nevelson has committed her life to working and volunteering in the Arts. She graduated with a BA in art history from George Washington University and an internship at the Museum of Temporary Art.

Maria chaired the board for Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art, then established the Louise Nevelson Foundation in 2005 to educate the public and celebrate the art and life of Maria’s Grandmother. Maria initiated the Oral History program recording first-hand accounts of Louise Nevelson’s associates and donated “The Welders of Lippincott” project to the Archives of American Art. The Catalogue Raisonne Database meticulously records every artwork providing an invaluable resource for collectors, museums, galleries and auction houses.

The Foundation partners with organizations finding innovative ways to tell Louise’s story and inspire new audiences with fresh insights. Maria provides art consulting services drawing on experience as a commercial interior designer, real estate sales, jewelry designer, and sculptor handling every aspect from procuring contracts, designing, marketing, and sales negotiations through her company Nevelson LLC. A Louise Nevelson expert, Maria works with major auction houses, e.g. Christie’s and Sotheby’s, providing provenance research substantiating the artwork’s value.

She has written essays for Fondazione Roma, Amon Carter Museum of Art, and Centre Pompidou-Metz exhibition catalogues and appeared in CNN’s Style with Elsa Klensch for a yacht’s interior design, films by Dale Schierholt and Raymond Telles, and most recently, an interview with Faith Salie for CBS Sunday Morning.

Sayer began her artistic career as a musician and performer, later earning a B.F.A. in Music Theater with a concentration in Composition from the University of Hartford’s Hartt School. In October 1991, her composition I Am a Good Child was selected as Song of the Year by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, leading to a performance of this and other original works at a World Habitat Day concert

In 1995, she began working with Slobodkina, initially as a composer creating musical interpretations of her children’s books. Their close collaboration continued until Slobodkina’s death in 2002, during which time Sayer became both her creative partner and personal assistant.

As president of the Foundation, Sayer has directed multiple large-scale initiatives, including a national three-year museum exhibition (2007–2010) and the creation of Caps for Sale & Other Great Tales, a major traveling retrospective launched in 2016. She has also authored official sequels to Caps for Sale, incorporating Slobodkina’s original illustrations and notes to continue the legacy in both literary and visual form.

Through her stewardship, Sayer has ensured that Slobodkina’s contributions to modern art and children’s literature remain accessible to scholars, educators, and the public. Her work continues to bridge historical preservation with contemporary education and performance.

Catherine Walworth is a modern art specialist whose curatorial work fuses political history, fashion, dance, and early film. Since joining the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in 2022, she has organized exhibitions such as Path to Abstraction: Picasso, Braque, and Cubism’s Impact on Modern Art and Kwame Brathwaite: The 1970s, while stewarding acquisitions for the AMFA Foundation Collection. Her upcoming national touring exhibition Architects of Being: Louise Nevelson and Esphyr Slobodkina (2025–2026) will be accompanied by a catalog featuring original scholarship.

Before AMFA, Walworth curated major modern and contemporary shows at Columbia Museum of Art, including Jackson Pollock: Mural and The Ironic Curtain: Art from the Soviet Underground. Her earlier work supported landmark traveling exhibitions at institutions such as Carnegie Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

She holds a PhD in art history from The Ohio State University, and her book Soviet Salvage was short-listed for the Modernist Studies Association’s First Book Prize. Her recent writing explores fashion and visual culture in classic film, including a 2024 chapter on MGM’s Ninotchka.