NEW YORK, NY.- The National Academy of Design announced the appointment of three senior staff members today:

● Thomas E. Moore, III as Director of Development
● Sara Reisman as Chief Curator and Director of National Academician Affairs
● Adrienne Elise Tarver as Director of Programs




“We are pleased to welcome Thomas E. Moore, III, Sara Reisman, and Adrienne Elise Tarver to our growing team at the National Academy of Design. They join the Academy at a critical moment and will each be integral to shaping the future of the Academy as a dynamic center of art and architecture,” said Gregory Wessner, Executive Director of the National Academy of Design.

Thomas E. Moore, III joins the National Academy as Director of Development. Most recently the Director of Individual Giving at New York Road Runners (NYRR), Moore is a graduate of CCNY’s Colin Powell School of Civic and Global Leadership and serves on the board of directors to several nonprofit organizations, including the American Friends of the Louvre, Represented Foundation, and the Association of Fundraising Professionals-NYC where he sits on numerous committees. He has previously served on Manhattan Community Board 10 in Central Harlem, appointed by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. He has served as the Interim Chief Development Officer for New York Edge, NYC’s largest provider of no cost out-of-school time programming for K-12 youth, and prior to that led major gift fundraising efforts for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), the Papal international humanitarian aid organization working on behalf of the Pope.

Sara Reisman joins the National Academy as Chief Curator and Director of National Academician Affairs. A curator, educator, and writer, Reisman was most recently the Executive and Artistic Director of the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation (2014-2021), and prior to that held roles as Director of the Percent for Art program at the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs (2008-2014), Associate Dean of the School of Art at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (2008-2009), and Curatorial Consultant for Public Art at the Queens Museum (2009). Reisman has curated exhibitions locally and internationally for venues including the Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery, Futura Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, the Queens Museum of Art, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Cooper Union School of Art, the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, Momenta Art, and Smack Mellon, among other venues. She has been awarded residencies by Art Omi, the Foundation for a Civil Society, Artis, CEC Artslink, Futura, and the Montello Foundation. Reisman has also taught art history and contemporary art at the University of Pennsylvania, SUNY Purchase School of Art + Design, and, since 2016, at the School of Visual Arts’ Curatorial Practice Master’s Program. She received her BA from the University of Chicago and was a 2002-2003 Helena Rubinstein Fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Adrienne Elise Tarver joins the National Academy as Director of Programs. An interdisciplinary artist, educator, and administrator, Tarver has worked and taught across the US and abroad including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Most recently she was the Associate Chair of Fine Arts at SCAD Atlanta, and prior to that was the Director of Art & Design for the Harlem School of the Arts. She has exhibited nationally and abroad, including solo or two-person exhibitions with Dinner Gallery (formerly Victori+Mo) in New York; Ochi Projects in Los Angeles; Hollis Taggart in New York; Wedge Curatorial in Toronto, Canada; Wave Hill in the Bronx, New York; BRIC Project Room in Brooklyn, New York; A-M Gallery in Sydney, Australia, and upcoming at the Aldrich Museum in Connecticut, Atlanta Contemporary in Georgia and the Armory Show in New York. She has been commissioned for projects through the New York MTA, the Public Art Fund, Google, Art Aspen, and Pulse Art Fair. She has been featured in online and print publications, including the New York Times, Brooklyn Magazine, Artnet, Whitewall Magazine, and Hyperallergic, among others. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and BFA from Boston University.