Susanna Gold moderates the "New Art Collector's Forum" in a Q&A with guests Michael Forman, Mey-Yen Moriuchi, Ron Tarver, and Reginald M. Brown. Join us at this live event to hear from new and seasoned collectors about how and why they got started collecting, what kind of works they pursue, how to learn more about art and artists, and other thoughts geared specifically toward emerging art collectors. 

Michael Forman is Chairman & CEO of FS Investments and has been leading the company since founding it in 2007, when it was known as Franklin Square Capital Partners. Prior to co-founding FS Investments, Forman founded a private equity and real estate investment firm. He started his career as a corporate and securities lawyer. Forman is a co-founder of Fitler Club. He is also a member of a number of civic and charitable boards, including Drexel University, The Franklin Institute, the corporate leadership board of the Barnes Foundation, and Philadelphia Center City District Foundation. He is Chairman of Vetri Community Partnership and Chairman of Philadelphia Contemporary. Forman has received a number of awards and honors. In 2017, Forman was honored by Mural Arts Philadelphia for his dedication to the City’s public art initiative. He received the 2019 Americanism Award from The Anti-Defamation League of Philadelphia for his commitment to advancing the causes of human rights, equal opportunity and diversity and inclusion. Forman lives in Center City with his wife and three daughters.

Mey-Yen Moriuchi is an Associate Professor of Art History at La Salle University where she specializes in cultural encounters and representations of racial, social, and national identities in colonial to contemporary Latin American art. She received her B.A. in History of Art and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History of Art from Bryn Mawr College. Her book, Mexican Costumbrismo: Race, Society, and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Art was published by Penn State University Press in 2018. Her current research examines Asian-African-Latin American connections in the artworks of 20th century artists such as Wifredo Lam and Tilsa Tsuchiya. She is also co-editing a volume on Art and Activism in the Twenty-First Century which examines the role and breadth of contemporary activist art (Routledge, 2022). Prior to academia, Dr. Moriuchi worked at Sotheby’s auction house and Mary Anne Martin Fine Art, a gallery that specializes in modern Latin American art. She has mainly focused on collecting diverse, local Philadelphia-based artists like Karyn Olivier, Michelle Angela Ortiz, Ron Tarver, Trish De Masi, and Ed McHugh.

Ron Tarver received a BA in Journalism and Graphic Arts from Northeastern State University and an MFA from the University of Arts. He serves as Associate Professor of Art at Swarthmore College. Before Swarthmore, Tarver was a photojournalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer for 32 years, where he shares a 2012 Pulitzer Prize and numerous international, national, and state awards. He is co-author of the book We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans, published by Harper Collins, which was accompanied by an exhibition that debuted at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. In addition to his career in photojournalism, Tarver has distinguished himself in the field of fine art photography. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and has received grants from National Geographic, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and two Independence Foundation Fellowships. His work is including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Oklahoma Museum of History, Studio Museum in Harlem, and the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

Reginald M. Browne, as a Principal of GTS, oversees Transaction Services for the firm. Mr. Browne has been at the forefront of the ETF Capital Markets since 1996, and he has played a major role in developing the ETF industry by launching early ETF funds for nearly all ETF sponsors, and by engaging institutional clients globally. A native Philadelphian, Mr. Browne earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from La Salle University where he serves as chair of the university advancement committee, and he serves as Vice of the Board at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Chair of the Board of Governors of the PAFA Art College. Mr. Browne is also a Board Director for Creative Capital in New York.

Susanna Gold, Moderator, has been active as an independent curator, scholar, and educator in the Philadelphia area for over 20 years. She served on the Art History faculty at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art for nearly a decade, and has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her Ph.D. She has curated academic and community-based exhibitions for institutions such as Woodmere Art Museum, InLiquid, Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, and Temple University's Tyler School of Art, and has curated several contemporary art exhibitions at NoBA Artspaces in Bala Cynwyd. She has presented papers and delivered lectures at professional conferences and museums internationally, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barnes Foundation, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She continues to work with private, corporate, and institutional clients to build their collections.