Collectors Panel Discussion

Lecture

The Baker Museum Exhibition Lecture
Collectors Panel Discussion

Courtney McNeil, Museum Director and Chief Curator, The Baker Museum
Gerald Lippes, collector
E.T. Williams, Jr., collector
Jeri L. Wolfson, collector

In conjunction with the exhibition Naples Collects 2022-23, Museum Director and Chief Curator Courtney McNeil will moderate a panel discussion featuring distinguished art collectors Gerald Lippes, E.T. Williams, Jr. and Jeri L. Wolfson. The collectors will share insights into their personal art collections and the philosophies that guide their collections’ development.

Courtney McNeil

Courtney McNeil

Courtney A. McNeil is a curator, art historian and museum leader with nearly two decades of museum and gallery experience. In her role as Museum Director and Chief Curator, The Baker Museum, McNeil provides artistic vision and strategic direction for the museum’s ambitious schedule of temporary exhibitions and the permanent collection of more than 4,000 objects. She has curated a broad range of exhibitions, including Spanish Sojourns: Robert Henri and the Spirit of Spain; Kahlil Gibran and the Feminine Divine; Mickalene Thomas at Giverny and Collecting Impressionism: Telfair’s Modern Vision. Her exhibitions have been recognized regionally and nationally with awards and grants from organizations including the Southeastern Museums Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Gerald Lippes

Gerald Lippes

Gerald S. Lippes is founder and senior partner of Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman LLP. In addition to his work in corporate and financial transactions, Lippes is chairman of Lippco Capital and Seapoint Holdings. He serves as a director of Gibraltar Industries, Hamister Group of Companies, TiLite, Centerstone Linen Services and City Mattress. Lippes’ nonprofit activities currently include the board of Artis—Naples, where he serves as co-chair of the museum board committee, the board of the national committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Jacobs Institute and the State University at Buffalo Council.

He is the recipient of several community and civic awards. Lippes was recently named on the Upstate New York Super Lawyers list in the category of Corporate and Financial Transactions. He holds a J.D., cum laude, from State University of New York at Buffalo School of law. He was senior editor of The State University of New York Law Review (1963-64), a Sprague scholar and a Clinton scholar.

E.T. Williams, Jr.

E.T. Williams, Jr.

E.T. Williams, Jr. is president of Elnora Inc., a private family investment company with interests in real estate, gas and oil leases, stock portfolio and African American art. He serves on the board of directors of Fiduciary Trust Co. of New York and served as chair of the audit committee for eight years.

Williams was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and received his B.A. in economics from Brooklyn College in 1960. Early in his career, Williams lived abroad in India, taught junior high school in Brooklyn and worked for the Peace Corps as a volunteer in Ethiopia. Williams’ career in finance began in 1968 when he joined the Maryland National Bank as a banker, soon becoming the first African American officer of a commercial bank in the state of Maryland. He left banking in 1982 and became the head of the Fordham Hill Project, the largest eviction co-op conversion in the history of New York City.

Williams is an avid African American art collector, holding works of art by Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden and Aaron Douglas. He owns the estate of Hale Woodruff and donated a sizeable portion of it to museum collections. Williams has served on several museum boards, including the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.

Jeri L. Wolfson

Jeri L. Wolfson

Jeri Louise Wolfson is a fifth-generation Floridian, currently residing in Naples, Florida, and Sun Valley, Idaho. She is involved in national philanthropic activities, serving as president of her own foundation as well as a board member for several family foundations. Additionally, Wolfson serves on the national advisory board for the Sun Valley Museum of Art and the executive board of directors for The Wolfsonian Museum FIU, and she is a trustee of The Audubon House and Gardens in Key West, Florida. Wolfson is a member of the visiting committee for the School of Communication at the University of Miami and is active with the Osher Center for Integrative and Complementary Medicine, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine.

An art patron and collector for more than 40 years, Wolfson’s most significant collection is of paintings, sculptures and works on paper by Modernist women artists. Dedicated to providing exposure for underrepresented and under-appreciated artists, Wolfson actively shares the collection. It has been presented in museum exhibitions across the country and select artworks are regularly loaned to special exhibitions throughout the world. Wolfson is a graduate of Skidmore College and a former trustee of women and gender studies at Brandeis University, Massachusetts. Beyond her deep love for all the arts, Wolfson’s passion is fly fishing.

Program Information

Program Information

View this month's program book to get general information about Artis—Naples and to read articles about this month’s activities.

  Program Book