Women artists lost a devoted champion with the passing of Kathleen Hulser, who died of a sudden heart attack on October 27, 2024, age 71. Curator, public historian, writer, consultant, poet, activist, feminist, and fierce friend, Kathleen’s scholarly focus was rebellious women. Incorrigibles, her compelling history of incarcerated girls, explores institutions of juvenile confinement and justice, such as the New York State Training School for Girls in Hudson, NY, where jazz great Ella Fitzgerald did juvenile time in 1933.
A larger than life persona, with a wonderfully contagious laugh, Kathleen’s charisma was on full display in her substack “Rambling Humanist,” [link: kathleen266. substack.com ] as well as her public talks and expertly mapped and guided walking tours of New York City; one particularly unforgettable tour she titled “Bad, Rad and Boho Women of the Village.” At the time of her death, Kathleen served as Executive Director and Chief Curator of MSeum, the world’s first museum to be built entirely by women. Previously, she served as curator at the New York Transit Museum (2016–2021), and as public historian at the New-York Historical Society (1999–2011).
At the New-York Historical Society, acclaimed projects Kathleen worked on included the 2005 publication Legacies: Contemporary Artists Reflect on Slavery (co-written with Cynthia R. Copeland and the redoubtable Lowery Stokes Sims) and the 2003 exhibition “Petropolis: A Social History of Urban Animal Companions.” A lifelong dog lover who often went hiking and swimming with her beloved Springer Spaniel, Shake(speare), near their Connecticut home, Kathleen is survived by a daughter, Kira, who enjoyed accompanying Kathleen on dog hikes with her German Shepherd. Most weekends, Kathleen (with her partner, C.C. Arshagra) was happy to entertain house guests, guiding them through energetic programs of, in her words, “expeditions and events.”
Fortunate indeed were Kathleen’s captivated students of Urban Studies and American History at New York University, The New School, and Pace University. Co-author (with Alison Cornyn) of The Trouble with Troubled Girls (Public Art Dialogue, 10:1, 2020), Kathleen was a frequent contributor to Gallery&Studio Arts Journal and penned numerous catalogues for artists (among them Pamela Sztybel, Karen Gentile, Patricia Udell, Helice Carris-Bernstein, and Janet Adler Schur). With characteristic humor, her final book is titled I Don’t Write Poetry and You Can’t Make Me (forthcoming from Press22 Publishing). An art aficionado down to her very toes was our dear Ms. Hulser; please enjoy this brief example of her always-engaging writing, texted to me not long before she sustained the myocardial infarction that broke our hearts. “To read and laugh,” Kathleen instructed. Join me in doing exactly as she requested.
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