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10
In Memoriam
Member Highlight
A dear friend to LUMA and a former member of our Board
of Advisors from 2009-2015 passed away onMarch 10, after
a short illness. Emily was a warm and intelligent person
who loved art and artists and that passion was demonstrated
in her long career as an educator and art consultant. Emily
turned her study of art history into a nationally-known
private art consulting business building collections for
corporations and private families throughout the United
States. Her engagement with LUMA began when she was
advising Bank of America and approached the museum
about organizing an Andy Warhol print exhibition in 2007,
shortly after becoming a board member for two terms
providing valuable advice as someone deeply rooted in
the modern and contemporary art world. Emily counted
among her friends and admirers Chicago filmmakers, artists,
collectors, curators and, musicians. We will remember her
as a person open and willing to share her connections, time,
and expertise in order to help LUMA grow and prosper.
She is pre-deceased by her husband the sculptor Dean
Langworthy, in 2013. All of our staff and board members
who worked with Emily and knew Dean will remember
their generosity of spirit.
Adrienne Traisman joined the LUMA Board of Advisors in
January of this year. A life-long Chicago resident, she grew
up on the city’s west side. Traisman credits her Eastern
European heritage with having a strong influence on her as
a child, as the visual beauty of Byzantine iconography of the
Orthodox Catholic Church inspired a life-long love of the
arts. A graduate of Mundelein College (now part of Loyola
University Chicago), she majored in art in the late 1970s
and early 1980s and has expressed how especially grateful
she is to the Mundelein program which allowed her the
opportunity to work part-time towards a Bachelor of Arts
degree while simultaneously earning a living.
Pursuing her interest and devotion for art, Adrienne has
been practicing for many years. She includes the 19th-
century landscape painter JMW Turner and 20th-century
abstractionist Mark Rothko among her diverse artistic
influences and inspirations. She states: “My interpretation of
the natural environment comes from a spiritual connection
and sense of awe rather than embellishment. My work
focuses on the experience of imponderable changes in
the (physical) atmosphere around us. These variances are
detected in a primordial way rather than acknowledged
intellectually.”
Adrienne has enhanced her knowledge of art history as well
as her ability to teach and interpret art by her experience
working as a docent at The Museum of Contemporary Art
and The Block Museum at Northwestern University.
Her notable creative talent and career have had an impact
on her family, encouraging her husband, pediatrician
Dr. Edward Traisman, to begin sculpting and painting.
In addition, both her son and daughter are active in the
performing arts. Continuously working to enhance her
artistic practice, Adrienne is in the process of pursuing
her MFA.
Emily Nixon
Adrienne Traisman