gala honoring
emily kernan rafferty

For its annual gala, supporters and artists join together in celebration and support of Catskill Art Space. This is the organization’s largest fundraising event of the year, raising crucial funds that sustain CAS for the year to come. To inaugurate the newly realized CAS, the gala will take place on Main Street with cocktails at CAS, followed by a seated dinner and program in a tent at Renaissance Park.

About the Honoree

Emily Kernan Rafferty, President Emerita of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, served for 40 years in a progression of leadership roles at the nation’s largest art Museum, most recently serving as President of the Met from 2005 to 2015. In addition to serving as a cultural leader in New York City, her global responsibilities took her to more than 50 countries, where she worked with government and private sector officials on initiatives involving funding, marketing, international art loans, and cultural exchange.

Ms. Rafferty’s continues her singular leadership in the Arts, currently serving as a Vice Chairman of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum; as well as a Board member of Carnegie Hall, the Asia Society, Civitella Ranieri, an Artist Residency Program in Italy, the Hispanic Society Museum and Library, and the Association of Art Museum Curators. A founding member of the eight Women, a bipartisan Congressional Commission to study the feasibility of an American Museum of Women’s History in Washington, D.C., she continues to advise the project, which received Congressional approval to proceed as part of the Smithsonian Institution.

Ms. Rafferty has been an enthusiastic member of the Catskill community and a pivotal advisor and mentor to the reinvention of Catskill Arts Space. We are so privileged to honor her at our 2023 celebration of CAS.