Dr. Myrtis Bedolla is the founder and proprietor of Galerie Myrtis, an emerging blue-chip gallery specializing in work by African American and African Diaspora artists. Her career spans more than three decades as a gallerist, art advisor, and curator, distinguished by a sustained commitment to equity, scholarship, and market advocacy.

By invitation of the U.S. Department of State, Bedolla served as a member of the United States delegation to Dakar, Senegal, for the 2024 Dakar Biennale. An advocate for equity and inclusion in the art industry, she presented “The Impact of Contemporary African Art on the American Market”, offering a comprehensive analysis of the opportunities and challenges shaping the contemporary African art market.

In 2022, Bedolla made history as the inaugural African American curator of “The Afro-Futurist Manifesto: Blackness Reimagined”, an award-winning exhibition presented during the 59th Venice Biennale as part of the European Cultural Centre’s Personal Structures exhibition.

That same year, Bedolla partnered with Christie’s Auction House in a landmark collaboration advancing equity and inclusion in the secondary market. The partnership garnered national attention, including coverage in The New York Times (“Christie’s and a Baltimore Gallery to Sell Work by Black Artists”) and Artnet (“A Black-Owned Baltimore Gallery Aims to Change the Game by Partnering Directly with Christie’s”).

Highlighting the systemic challenges faced by African American art dealers, Bedolla was featured in The New York Times editorial “Black Gallerists Press Forward Despite a Market That Holds Them Back” (June 2020) and authored “Why My Blackness Is Not a Threat to Your Whiteness” for Cultured Magazine (July 2020).

In 2023, Bedolla received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art in recognition of her curatorial leadership and scholarly contributions. She also received a Governor’s Citation from Maryland Governor Wes Moore, underscoring her impact on the arts and cultural landscape.

Bedolla holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Maryland Global Campus, completed curatorial training at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and earned certificates in Cultural Theory for Curators and Curatorial Procedures from the Node Center for Curatorial Studies in Berlin, Germany. She has lectured and served on national and international panels at leading cultural institutions, including the Aspen Institute; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum; Galería Carmen Montilla, Cuba; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Museum of Black Civilizations, Dakar; the Library of Congress; Palazzo Michiel, Venice; the Reginald F. Lewis Museum; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Bedolla is a member of the Association of African American Museums (AAAM), Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC), ArtTable, and the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA). She currently serves on the boards of the University of Maryland Global Campus Arts Program and the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore.

Board appointments
Association of Art Museum Curators & AAMC Foundation Trustee
University of Maryland Global Campus, Arts Program Chair
Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Board

Professional memberships
ArtTable
Association of African American Museums (AAAM)
Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC)
International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA)
 
Image courtesy photographer Grace Roselli, “Pandora’s BoxX Project”

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