Engaging in the Art World with the 2026 Museum Fellows Term Cohort
Seven students from Bennington College have been selected as Frankenthaler Fellows for the 2026 Museum Fellows Term, a study-away program that provides participants with practical, professional art world internship experience working at a major cultural institution in New York City for five months.
2026 Frankenthaler Fellows:
- Rey Cordero ’27, Education Intern, The Kitchen
- Mali Jones ’27, Archives Intern, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture
- Cleo Kovner ’27, Education Intern, The Jewish Museum
- Maxine Lieb ’27, Archives Intern, Dia Art Foundation
- Arielle O'Brien-Schenck ’27, Collections Intern, Museum of the Moving Image
- Stella Peacock-Berardino ’27, Intern, Swiss Institute
- Shaia Saraf ’27, Development and Communications Intern, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art
First launched in January 2015 with a pilot grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bennington College now runs Museum Fellows Term in partnership with the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, which promotes the visual arts and preserves the legacy of distinguished Bennington alum Helen Frankenthaler '49.
The program spans both Field Work Term and Spring terms each year and provides students with an intensive, immersive experience that is rarely available at the undergraduate level. Nearly 70 Bennington students have participated in Museum Fellows Term throughout the program's history.
In five months, this strategically designed program concentrates a breadth of experiences and range of learning that could otherwise take years to accumulate, helping to drive and shape fellows' thinking about their future studies and ambitions.
“It’s been wonderful working with this year’s cohort, and I am continually grateful to our internship partners and to Helen Frankenthaler Foundation for making these incredible opportunities possible,” said Visual Arts faculty member and program director Elizabeth White.
For the 2026 Museum Fellows Term, Frankenthaler Fellows are living together in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.
In addition to their internships, Frankenthaler Fellows have had numerous opportunities to view art by and build connections with Bennington alumni engaged in the art world.
Studio Visits and Exhibition Tours
At the Museum of Modern Art, Fellows participated in a curator-led tour with Samantha Friedman, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints and Elizabeth Wickham, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture of Helen Frankenthaler (’49): A Grand Sweep. Odili Donand Odita (MFA '90): Songs from Life is also currently on view in MoMA’s main lobby.
This term, Frankenthaler Fellows visited the studio of Louisa Owen '18 and will also visit the studio of Bennington faculty member Ann Pibal.
Fellows visited the Leslie-Lohman Museum, a new internship partner for 2026, for a tour of David Wojnarowicz: Arthur Rimbaud in New York with exhibition curator and MFT faculty member Sergio Bessa.
Fellows also visited Dia Beacon for conversation with Meagan Mattingly ’00, Director of Learning and Engagement, and toured the archives with Amye McCarther, Archivist and MFT internship supervisor.
As they traveled through the city, Fellows also spotted the work of Maren Hassinger ’69 installed in the subway station at Central Park North/110th St.
Alumni Connections Across the Art World
In March, Laura Skoler '57 hosted lunch for the 2026 Frankenthaler Fellows, along with Program Director Liz White. The group met at Skoler's apartment in New York City for a conversation about her experiences collecting contemporary art and serving as a trustee of the New Museum.
The students loved seeing and learning about the works in Laura’s collection and hearing what Bennington was like in the '50s. Mali Jones ‘27 was struck by Laura’s “knack for telling stories and immaculate style,” and Cleo Kovner ‘27 reflected that she felt Laura’s “passion not just for art but for community” and described the visit as “a highlight of the term.”
The current cohort of fellows have also reconnected with Bennington alumni who were previous Frankenthaler Fellows and now work in the art world. These alumni include:
- Natalie Bates ’20 (MFT ’19), now an art handler in the books and manuscripts department of Christie’s Fine Art Storage.
- Georgianna Richer ’17 (MFT ’16), now a Senior Account Executive with Artsy
- Lorena Fernandez Camba ’25 (MFT ’24), now a Program Associate of the Music Division and Summer Programs at The Juilliard School.
- River Valadez ’20 (MFT ’19), who led fellows in a flameworking class at Urban Glass.
- On May 8, fellows will visit the exhibition Chuna Chugay: Chin to Eye: Koryo-Saram Landscapes at Allied Productions, featuring the work of Chuna Chugay ’25 (MFT ’24) and co-curated by Grace Muller ’25 (MFT '24).
- Fatima Zaidi '16 (MFT '15), now Director of Development at The Kitchen.
- Sophia Paez ’23 (MFT ’23), now registrar at The Drawing Room gallery in East Hampton, NY.
To cap off another exciting year, fellows will travel to Venice, Italy, at the end of May to explore the 2026 Biennale di Venezia.
About the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation
The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, established and endowed by the artist during her lifetime (1928-2011), became active in 2013, on the closing of Frankenthaler’s estate. The Foundation is dedicated to promoting greater public interest in and understanding of the visual arts. It supports the artist’s legacy through a variety of initiatives, including exhibitions, loans of artworks, research and publications, conservation, grants, educational programs for the public and the scholarly community, and the publishing of a catalogue raisonné. As the principal beneficiary of Frankenthaler’s estate, its holdings include an extensive selection of her work in a variety of mediums, her collection of works by other artists, and original papers and materials pertaining to her life and work.