Karen Johnson Boyd, American art dealer. Trustee emeritus Bennington (Vermont) College; board advisors Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Museum Design, New York City, 1980-1990; board directors Milwaukee Art Museum, 1981-1992, Wustum Museum Art, Racine, since 1999. Member American Craft Council (board directors 1981-1992), Chicago Art Dealers Association, Arts Club Chicago.
Background
She was the daughter of Herbert Fisk Johnson, Junior., and Gertrude Brauner Johnson. As a teenager, she lived at Wingspread, a house designed for her father by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, built in 1938–1939 in the village of Wind Point near Racine, Wisconsin.
Education
Bachelor, Bennington College, 1946.
Career
She had been an art dealer and had particularly supported craft art She opened Perimeter Gallery in Chicago in 1982, which has promoted craft and other contemporary artists. She contributed more than 1,750 works to the Racine Art Museum.
Her 1991 gift of 200 artworks helped Random Access Memory to establish itself as a national leader in contemporary crafts.
She was actively involved in the creation of the new Random Access Memory building in downtown Racine, Wisconsin in 2003, and the galleries were named after her. She was a board member emerita of the Racine Art Museum.
Achievements
Membership
Trustee emeritus Bennington (Vermont) College. Board advisors Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Museum Design, New York City, 1980-1990. Board directors Milwaukee Art Museum, 1981-1992, Wustum Museum Art, Racine, since 1999.
Member American Craft Council (board directors 1981-1992), Chicago Art Dealers Association, Arts Club Chicago.
Interests
Avocations: art collecting, sailing, travel, theater, music, dance, photography.
Connections
Married Willard Hampton Keland, March 19, 1945 (divorced 1965). Children: K. Nikoline, Karen H., Andrea K., William H. Married William Beaty Boyd, June 26, 1982.