About

Betsy Jacks is a visual artist, writer, and museum director. Her paintings have been exhibited in New York City and in the Hudson Valley, and her written work has been published by both academic and commercial presses.

She is currently the Executive Director of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site — an art museum and historic home of a 19th-century artist in New York’s Hudson Valley that she transformed from an unknown house museum with no professional staff into an international destination with 20 staff, a campus of six buildings, and an annual budget of $2 million. During her two decades at the historic site, she oversaw the curation of twenty-five art exhibitions and publication of thirty books while raising over ten million dollars, restoring three 19th-century buildings and building two new ones.

Between 1999 and 2003, Jacks was Director of Marketing at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She grew up in Manhattan, attended the Brearley School, earned a BA in Art and Art History Cum Laude from Duke University and an MBA in Marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she earned the Dean’s Service Award for creating a new student-run organization, Culture Connection, which brought business school students to cultural events in Chicago. Prior to attending Kellogg, she managed exhibitions at a 57th Street gallery of contemporary art and worked with the start-up non-profit, GEN ART, now a leading arts and entertainment company.

In 2020 she was appointed to the New York Museum Regents Advisory Council, which offers advice and consultation on issues of policy and service to museums across the State. She is also the Vice-Chair of the Hudson River Valley Greenway, created by New York State to develop a regional strategy for preserving scenic, natural, historic, cultural and recreational resources; and she is on the Management Committee for the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, which collaborates with government agencies, non-profit groups and private partners to interpret, preserve and celebrate the nationally significant cultural and natural resources of the Hudson River Valley.

Jacks’ artistic career began with her undergraduate degree in both art history and studio art and a senior exhibition. After moving back to New York, she studied and exhibited at the Art Students’ League and was included in the annual Whitney Museum staff art exhibition in 2000, 2001 and 2002. She established a practice in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she held open studio events, exhibited in local venues, and sold work to private collectors. Since moving to the Hudson Valley in 2003, she exhibited at Brik Gallery and other venues in Catskill, New York.

While at the Thomas Cole site, her essays and forewords have been published by The Monacelli Press in New York, Hirmer Publishers in Munich, Yale University Press, Cornell University Press, and The Artist Book Foundation. She is an experienced public speaker and has presented at the Paul Mellon Centre in London, The New-York Historical Society, the American Association of Museums annual conference, The Albany Institute of History & Art, and many other museums and societies. She is frequently featured in documentary films, TV news, print media and radio programs and is an annual guest on WAMC Northeast Public Radio. She currently lives in Chatham, New York, with her husband and two daughters.