YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Anastasia James said she never imagined she would one day run the museum that her mother took her through as a child.
The Butler Institute of American Art announced in May that it had hired the Pittsburgh native as its fourth executive director, succeeding Louis Zona.
Now three weeks into her role, James shared early insights into the museum and her new community during this week’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Youngstown.
“Every day that I walk into the museum, I am consistently surprised by the strength of the collection,” she said. “Every day, it continues to excite me – just how many important works of art we have.”
Most recently serving as director of galleries and public art at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, James said her scholarly work focuses on 20th-century art, and she has published extensively on the work of Andy Warhol, “one of the defining artists of the 20th century,” as well as on Black Mountain College, “a groundbreaking experimental art school whose artists and educators transformed modern American art education.”
She has brought that scholarship to institutions across the country, from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and the Queens Museum in New York to working alongside George Lucas during development of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.
“Although each museum is different in its mission and also in its collections, they all reinforce the same conviction – that museums are not simply repositories of objects; they’re repositories of human creativity,” she remarked. “They preserve the evidence of who we have been. They invite us to reflect on who we are, and they inspire us, and they inspire our children to imagine what we can become.”
Her own journey with museums began “really close to home,” she reflected. The “very proud fourth-generation yinzer” didn’t grow up in Youngstown, but her father earned a graduate degree from Youngstown State University.
“As a child, my mother often brought me to the Butler. I remember wandering galleries with a sense of wonder,” she recalled. “I certainly never imagined that one day I would have the privilege of becoming only the fourth executive director in this museum’s wonderful history, but life has a beautiful way of finding us sometimes.”
While people rarely recall everything they learned in a classroom, what remains with them is “the experience of discovery – a moment that something changed our assumptions, sparked our creativity or caused us to see familiar things differently,” she continued.
“That’s one of those quiet powers of museums. They preserve our cultural memory. They cultivate the habits of curiosity, of observation, and critical thinking that enrich every profession and every stage of life,” she said. “They encourage us to ask questions and dig deeper, and in a world that often rewards speed and certainty, museums remind us of the value of slowing down, looking carefully and remaining open to new ideas.”
As the first museum in the United States dedicated to American art exclusively, the Butler occupies “a singular” and “important” place in the country’s cultural history, and James is excited about not simply preserving that legacy but also building on it in her early months, she remarked.
As she has settled into her new community over the past few weeks, one thing that has become “immediately clear” is its “extraordinary tradition of civic engagement,” she said.
“People invest their time; they invest their expertise; and they invest their resources because they believe thriving communities are built on participation,” she said. Rotary’s motto, “Service Above Self,” is “a philosophy of leadership” that serves as a reminder that the greatest achievements are rarely individual.
“They’re collective, and they’re measured by the institutions we strengthen, the opportunities we create for others and the communities that we leave better than we found,” she said.
“Institutions exist to serve their communities,” she added. “I believe in stewardship over ownership and leaving organizations stronger for the next generation.”
James also is looking for ways to share the museum’s collection more widely. Its inventory includes 20 to 30 works that are better than works in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, she said.
“We have a lot of depth in our collection, which we have not exhibited before,” she remarked. That includes “significant holdings” in comic art, as well as large photography, pop art and pop culture collections, which she looks forward to sharing more widely.
Becky Keck, president and founder of Students Motivated by the Arts in Youngstown and a Youngstown Rotary member, said James is a good choice to take over the museum, which she described as “the backbone of the visual arts community” locally. Leaders in the local arts community have watched the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s work for more than 20 years.
“I’m excited to have her join the community and looking forward to working with her,” she said.
Another Rotary member, Bill Lawson, is executive director of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, which operates two museums, the Arms Family Museum and the Tyler History Center in Youngstown and is preparing to eventually open a third in the former IBM Building.
The Butler is “really the flagship” of the area’s strong museum community because it was first and was unique in its collecting field, focusing on American art.
Her presentation was “music to my ears,” he said after the meeting.
“She’s walked the walk, and with her training and experience as a museum student, professional and leader, I’m very much enthusiastic about the future with her,” he said.
“It’s the honor of a lifetime,” James said of her new role. “It’s something I’ve been working towards my entire career, and I’m really, really excited to steward this museum and give back to this community in a meaningful way.”
Pictured at top: Anastasia James, director of The Butler Institute of American Art.