Gabriella De Ferrari

Honorary Doctorate in Letters from Colby College (2008)

In 2007 and 2008, De Ferrari was creative director of Project Globe 2008 for American Express Publishing and Travel + Leisure magazine. The project commissioned arts and designers to create works in response to the concept of the globe.

From 2000 to 2006, De Ferrari served as the philanthropic advisor to the chairman and CEO of United Technologies Corporation. Under her guidance, the company was awarded the Americans for the Arts Award for corporate leadership in the arts, as a result of several new arts initiatives, including a public art program that commissioned new works displayed in New York, Boston, and Hartford, and a program that funded exhibitions, including one of Vincent van Gogh’s drawings and one of Jasper Johns’ Grey Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The New School Medal for Distinguished Service (1996)

In 1994 De Ferrari became the founding chair of the board of governors of the Colby College Museum of Art. Under her leadership, the museum's collection added major works by artists Sol LeWitt, Terry Winters, and Richard Serra, among others.

In 1994, she published Gringa Latina: A Woman of Two Worlds (Houghton Mifflin), a memoir about growing up as a “gringa” in Peru and then becoming a “Latina” in the United States. The book appeared in many foreign editions.

Her novel, A Cloud on Sand, was published in 1990 by Alfred A. Knopf. In 1990, Barnes & Noble awarded A Cloud on Sand a Discover Award via its annual “Discover Great New Writers” program. It was also named one of the ten best books of 1990 by Entertainment Weekly and was published in many languages.

In 1990, Barnes & Noble awarded A Cloud on Sand a Discover Award

One of the ten best books of 1990 by Entertainment Weekly (A Cloud on Sand) (1990)

Born in Tacna, Peru in 1941 to Italian parents, De Ferrari moved to the United States to attend Saint Louis University in Saint Louis, Missouri, where she graduated with a B.A. in marketing and economics. De Ferrari then earned an M.A. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, and an M.A. in art history from Harvard University. After her studies, she became an influential art historian, curator, and administrator at major US art institutions, such as The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, where she became director. She moved to New York City in 1989, where she began to write about art, design, and general-interest subjects.