Deputy Director, 92nd Street Y School of the Arts
In fall 2007, Sarah McNear became deputy director of 92nd Street Y’s School of the Arts. With the School's director, Robert Gilson, she oversees a range of special projects and programs in the School's four components, the School of Music, the Harkness Dance Center, the Art Center and Educational Outreach. In this capacity, Sarah was among the first class of twenty-five professionals to attend the National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Leadership Training Institute in the summer of 2010.
Sarah joined the 92Y staff in September 2006 as director of its 2,500-student Art Center, a position she still holds. She oversees an art-education program offering classes for adults in painting, drawing, collage, ceramics, sculpture, watercolor, photography, jewelry and metalsmithing, and art appreciation. She also runs an after-school program offering children and teenagers classes in cartooning, painting, drawing, architecture, ceramics, jewelry, photography, art appreciation and portfolio preparation. Along with developing programming, Sarah’s responsibilities include recruiting, training and managing a faculty of 90 and managing 92Y's 11 professionally equipped art studios (five for studio art, four for jewelry and metalsmithing, and two for ceramics).
During a 25-year career as a museum curator specializing in photography, Sarah has held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Allentown Art Museum, the LaSalle Bank Photography Collection and the Museum of Modern Art, where she was the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Fellow in Photography. Before relocating in 2002 to Westchester County, where she directed the Larchmont/Mamaroneck Center for Continuing Education, Sarah directed Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Photography.
Sarah has organized more than 50 exhibitions and is the author of several books including Barbara Crane: The Loop (D.A.P., 2001), The Angle of Repose: Four American Photographers in Egypt (D.A.P., 2000), Joan Snyder: Works on Paper (D.A.P., 1993) and Honoring Traditions: Perspectives of Three Asian-American Artists (Ball State University, 2003).
She holds an M.A. and B.A. in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. And she has served on advisory committees for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Art-in-Architecture Program for the U.S. General Service Administration.