Our mission is to foster the visual arts on Nantucket. We do this by teaching all ages and skill levels, selling work by our artist members, and curating the island’s essential historical art collection. We are an original artists colony 30 miles out to sea. We have a small and hard working team who strive to keep Nantucket creative and its artists engaged.
Executive Artistic Director
For eighty years, the Artists Association of Nantucket (AAN) has been the island’s indispensable creative institution—the place where a fledgling postwar art colony became a cultural powerhouse, where Tennessee Williams and Thornton Wilder once spoke, where the Whitney and the Metropolitan Museum once lent their finest works, and where today more than 250 member artists exhibit, teach, and create.
Now AAN stands at one of the most exciting inflection points in its history. A major gallery renovation on Federal Street is underway, a capital campaign is building momentum, and the Board is poised to invest in the next era of programming, exhibitions, collection stewardship, and community impact. The organization needs a leader equal to the moment.
The Artists Association of Nantucket seeks a visionary, entrepreneurial, and emotionally intelligent leader to serve as its next Executive Artistic Director (EAD), the chief executive responsible for advancing AAN’s artistic mission, ensuring financial sustainability, and overseeing daily operations. Reporting to a deeply engaged Board of Directors, the EAD will partner with staff, artists, donors, and community constituents to write the next chapter of an organization whose influence extends well beyond its island home.
The ideal candidate will bring a compelling blend of artistic sensibility and organizational acumen—a leader equally comfortable championing emerging artists and managing a complex budget, equally at ease cultivating major donors and curating gallery exhibitions. Above all, the next EAD will be someone who understands that the arts are not a luxury but a vital force that defines community, sparks economic vitality, and preserves cultural heritage for future generations.
The Artists Association of Nantucket has retained Jack Gorman of Isaacson Miller, a global executive search firm, to assist in this recruitment. Screening of complete applications will begin immediately and continue until the search process is complete. Inquiries, nominations, referrals, and CVs with cover letters should be sent via the Isaacson, Miller website.
AAN is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate and will take affirmative action measures to ensure against discrimination in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.