An arts leader with national reach, Franklin steps into the role following a landmark 22-year tenure by Stephanie Snyder.
November 20, 2025
The Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery announced that Derek Franklin has been appointed Anne and John Hauberg Director and Curator of the Cooley Gallery at Reed College.
Franklin is an artist, curator, and arts leader who earned his MFA from the Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University. He returned to the Pacific Northwest in 2016 after a number of years on the East Coast to take the position of Director of Art Program and Associate Professor at Marylhurst. Franklin is a 2025 Ford Family Fellow.
Franklin has served as director of the artist-run spaces Soloway Gallery (New York) and SE Cooper Contemporary (Portland) and as Executive Director and Artistic Director of Converge 45, a non-profit arts organization that produces a contemporary art triennial in Portland, Oregon. In addition, he has been a longtime educator with positions at Marylhurst University, Lewis & Clark College, and the University of Oregon.
Franklin was selected following a nationwide search initiated as former director Stephanie Snyder retired after 22 years of service to the college. Snyder curated more than 60 exhibitions with artists such as Kara Walker, Bruce Nauman, Elspeth Pratt, Brad Kalhammer, Jess, David Reed, and a Gregg Bordowitz retrospective that traveled to MoMA PS1 and the Art Institute of Chicago. During her tenure, the Cooley published dozens of exhibition catalogs, monographs, and the Companion Editions series with books by Chris Krauss and on Bruce Nauman and Alan Sonfist.