The Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art announced today that it has elected four new members: Amy Bermingham, Gilberto Cárdenas, George Merck, and Richard J. Miller. Their four-year terms begin July 1, 2017.

Ms. Bermingham, who specializes in estate planning, has been a partner at Ehrenkranz & Ehrenkranz LLP since 1995. She is a member of The New York Public Library Planned Giving Advisory Board, a member of the Planned Giving Committee of Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center, and a member of the Professional Advisory Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dr. Cárdenas is the executive director of the Notre Dame Center for Arts and Culture in South Bend, Indiana. He was the founding director of the Institute for Latino Studies and an assistant provost at the University of Notre Dame. He held the Julian Samora Chair in Latino Studies from 1999‒2012. A full professor in the Department of Sociology, he has authored and edited numerous books, articles, monographs, and reports. In 2001, Dr. Cárdenas was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships and, in 2009, was appointed by President Bush to serve on the National Museum of the American Latino Commission. He served as chairperson of the Smithsonian Latino Center Board (2012‒14) and was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, a $1.5-billion minority scholarship initiative established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.

Mr. Merck is an art collector focused primarily on the post-war period; the contemporary art movements Arte Povera, Zero, and Fluxus; and emerging Latin American and American artists. He has worked as a freelance consultant to Milk Gallery in New York, advising artists on strategically increasing the exposure of their work, growing and developing their patron base, and consulting on archival management for collections and estates. He is currently a partner with Del Toro Shoes and The Next Step Realty, both based in New York City.

Mr. Miller is a member of the New York law firm Morris & McVeigh LLP. His practice includes the representation of cultural institutions. Mr. Miller was appointed Chairman of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center Corporation by Governor George Pataki in 1998, serving until 2004. He is the president of the Metropolitan Opera Guild and an advisory director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He also serves on numerous other boards and organizations including the Emma Willard School, the Bagby Foundation for the Musical Arts, Inc., the American Associates of the Royal Academy Trust, and the International Friends of the Lyric Art Festival in Aix-en-Provence.

About the Archives of American Art

Founded in 1954, the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art fosters advanced research through the accumulation and dissemination of primary sources, unequaled in historical depth and breadth, that document more than 200 years of the nation’s artists and art communities. The Archives provides access to these materials through its exhibitions and publications, including the Archives of American Art Journal, the longest-running scholarly journal in the field of American art. An international leader in the digitizing of archival collections, the Archives also makes more than 2 million digital images freely available online. The oral history collection includes more than 2,300 audio interviews, the largest accumulation of in-depth, first-person accounts of the American art world. www.aaa.si.edu

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