President

David Knaus has been involved in the visual arts and cultural arena as both a patron and collector since the late 1980s. His broad-ranging collection includes works of photography, contemporary art, conceptual art, and new media from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. Knaus regularly lends and donates objects from his collection to museums worldwide. He has been instrumental in placing major photographic archives at research institutions, including the work of Lewis Baltz, Linda Connor, Mark Ruwedel, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, and Arthur Tress. Knaus was a founding member of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Photographs Council, Tate Modern’s Photography Collection Council, and the Photography Initiative Advisory Committee at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. From 2011 to 2016, he served as Managing Director of the Marrakech Museum of Photography and Visual Arts in Morocco, where he forged a public-private partnership with the Moroccan Ministry of Culture. Since 2008, Knaus has been chair of the board of High Desert Test Sites in Joshua Tree, California,which oversees the 80-acre compound founded by artist Andrea Zittel. 

Knaus has served on the board of the Claire Falkenstein Foundation since 2023. 

Vice President

Rebecca McGrew is a curator, art historian, writer, and arts professional who specializes in contemporary art. She is Executive Director of The Edward and Nancy Keinholz Foundation. Recognized as a leader in the curatorial field, McGrew has organized numerous monographic and thematic exhibitions that brought attention to diverse underrecognized artists. Her work emphasizes collaboration with artists and the exploration of artistic strategies that challenge prevailing narratives. From highlighting pivotal conceptual, feminist, and performance artists in the late twentieth century in Southern California, to creating a dialogue with emerging artists from Hiroshima to Mexico City to Abu Dhabi, McGrew believes that thinking critically alongside artists yields the most dynamic exhibitions, publications, and programs.

McGrew has served on the board of the Claire Falkenstein Foundation since 2019. 

Photo by Lisa Anne Auerbach

Secretary

Jennifer A. Watts is Senior Curator, Special Projects, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Until recently, she served as the institution’s curator of photography, overseeing the development, management, and interpretation of its extensive collection in addition to directing numerous grant projects, exhibitions, and award-winning publications. In 2016, she founded The Huntington’s first contemporary art initiative, which centered on five-year-long collaborations between The Huntington and a variety of arts and cultural organizations. Outcomes included site-specific installations, educational programming, performance pieces, sound work, film, and other art forms.

Watts has served on the board of the Claire Falkenstein Foundation since 2023. 

Photo by Katie Shapiro

Treasurer

Carol S. Eliel, Senior Curator Emerita of Modern Art, worked at LACMA from 1984 through 2023. Dr. Eliel organized numerous exhibitions with catalogues for LACMA, including Light, Space, Surface: Works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2023); Betye Saar: Call and Response (2019); Moholy-Nagy: Future Present (2017); John Altoon (2014); Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible (2014); David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy (2011); Lee Mullican: An Abundant Harvest of Sun (2005); L’Esprit Nouveau: Purism in Paris, 1918–1925 (2001); and many others. Dr. Eliel was also actively involved in building the museum’s collection, including acquisitions by Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Andrea Bowers, Mary Corse, Claire Falkenstein, Maren Hassinger, Craig Kauffman, Lee Krasner, Senga Nengudi, Howardena Pindell, Alice Rahon, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, and many others. In addition to her work at LACMA, Dr. Eliel has lectured across the United States, written on a wide variety of subjects ranging from 18th-century French painting to cutting-edge contemporary art, chairs the Modern & Contemporary Art vetting committee at TEFAF, and served from 2011 to 2013 as president of the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC). Her honors include being named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. Dr. Eliel received her BA from Yale University and her MA and PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

Eliel has served on the board of the Claire Falkenstein Foundation since 2023. 

Executive Director

David Evans Frantz is Executive Director of the Claire Falkenstein Foundation. He has previously held curatorial positions at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and the Palm Springs Art Museum. As a curator, his work has highlighted the work of often underrecognized queer artists. His curatorial projects include Millie Wilson: The Museum of Lesbian Dreams at the Krannert Art Museum (2024); Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art, co-curated with C. Ondine Chavoya for the Vincent Price Art Museum, Williams College Museum of Art, and Independent Curators International (ICI) (2023–ongoing); and Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., co-curated with C. Ondine Chavoya for ONE Archives at the USC Libraries and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2017; toured by ICI, 2018–22). Frantz is co-editor with Christina Linden and Chris E. Vargas of Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects (Hirmer, 2023), a project of the Museum of Trans Hirstory & Art (MOTHA).

Photo by Star Montana