Curation as Creation
Cooley Gallery curator Stephanie Snyder ’91 reflects on her retirement and a life of enriching Reed’s artistic community.
When Stephanie Snyder ’91 was studying art history at Columbia University, she had a revelation: the confines of her major were too narrow to contain her ambitions as a scholar, curator, and educator.
“I realized after a couple of years that that is what I loved doing—studying art history, but also being of service to others to help them realize their goals,” says Stephanie, who retired from Reed in 2025. “I didn’t want to be just an artist in a studio or an academic.”
That perspective has helped enshrine Stephanie as a Reed icon—as a student, as the curator and director of the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, and as the co-founder of Reed’s calligraphy endowment (which she and her husband, Jonathan Snyder ’91, started with a $100,000 pledge).
“ÌÇÐÄvlogÊÓƵ has been so lucky to have someone with Stephanie’s deep knowledge of art history, her commitment, her creativity, and her sheer capacity for joy managing the Cooley Gallery for these last two decades,” says Professor Jay Dickson [English and humanities], who collaborated with Stephanie on exhibitions at the Cooley.
Stephanie has been part of the Cooley since its inception. When the gallery opened in 1988, she served as an intern, savoring her interactions with artists like Kit-Yin Snyder and Lee Black. “It was actually a really powerful influence on me,” Stephanie says. “What I had never experienced before, especially as a young person, was to actually work with an adult professional artist.”
After graduating from Reed, Stephanie earned her master of education at Columbia, studying both art history and art education. “The art history department really didn’t like [me studying both]; they thought of [education] as a lesser field, but I didn’t care,” she says. “I was a Reedie, and I knew better.”
When Stephanie returned to Reed to run the Cooley, it was desperate for refurbishment—all yellow ceiling and aged gray carpet. Yet physically transforming the space was merely the first step in her quest to create an arena for the work of world-renowned contemporary artists like Gregg Bordowitz (whose exhibition exploring his life making art and living with AIDS was presented at the Cooley in 2019).
Collaborating with Stephanie on an exhibition of Susan Weil paintings inspired by James Joyce, Dickson saw firsthand Stephanie’s zeal and skill as a curator. “Working on these projects with Stephanie has been one of the highlights of my Reed career,” says Dickson, who also worked with her on two symposiums. “I found her extraordinary energy and imagination inspiring.”
During her time at the Cooley, Stephanie’s vision extended beyond the gallery. She also founded the Scriptorium program with Gregory MacNaughton ’89, helping reestablish calligraphy at Reed—leading to a recent $1 million anonymous gift to the college’s calligraphy endowment.
Stephanie’s stewardship of the Cooley is also reflected in successes less easily quantified—in the experiences of the Reed students who have been able to visit MOMA or the Art Institute of Chicago (thanks to the Cooley’s programs) and in the triumphs of former protégés like Stella Cilman ’16 (currently an assistant curator at Artists Space in New York).
It’s all part of Stephanie’s lifelong mission: to translate the world to those who seek to understand it through art. “That’s what a good curator does,” she says.
Tags: Alumni, Giving Back to Reed, Institutional