Path to Art Advisory: Rachel Greene
Rachel Greene, of Art & Advisory, is based in Seattle, WA. With nearly two decades of experience working in and with galleries, museums, organizations, and artists, Rachel has advised private collectors, corporate clients, family offices, and institutions all over the world, from the Office of the Prime Minister of France to the St. Regis in Aspen. She was recently included in the 2026 CULTURED Power Advisor List.
Her studies and passion for art and art history have taken her from the University of Pennsylvania (BA, Hons) to earning a Master’s of Arts at the University of Sussex, to becoming a Helena Rubinstein Fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Rachel is also the author of numerous catalogue essays and articles, and the book Internet Art in Thames & Hudson’s World of Art series, and recently taught a course on Yayoi Kusama at an independent school in Seattle.
What was your first “art world” job?
Rhizome (now at the New Museum). I was working at a startup when Mark Tribe (Rhizome’s founder) came in for a meeting. I was completely smitten listening to him talk about Conceptual Art and the Berlin art scene. I remember thinking, I want to be on that guy's team. I emailed him, and he took a chance on me. We have four paintings by Mark in the entryway of our house, and it is not just because I love them, but it is because he is my raison d’être in the art world in many ways.
What's one lesson you learned that has stayed with you?
It seems obvious now, but just because an artwork was revelatory to me or connected with my own personal narrative, it does not mean it will be meaningful or valuable to anyone else.
Where did you first hear about art advising?
It was something I was doing informally because of my dear friend from college years, the actor Amanda Peet. She said to me when we were in our 20s…. “Buying shoes is boring. Help me buy prints by great New York post-war artists.” She is so curious about art and art history - she is so tuned into the vitality art can bring – she is like the Platonic ideal of an “art advisory client,” and I am so lucky to have had her all this time!
Book Party for Rachel’s book INTERNET ART at the New Museum, 2004
Rachel Greene and Katherine Bernhardt at Art & Advisory/GILT event for publishing Katherine’s prints 2010
Rachel Greene at a client’s home with a Mary Obering painting from Bortolami, 2022.
Who did you look up to when you were first considering art advising?
I knew art collectors (my parents collected Bo Bartlett) and a college Professor I was close to collected “British pictures,” but I did not know of any art advisors at all. I was helping Amanda Peet, and then I met Erica Samuels when we were both on maternity leave. We clicked and started a business together. She is such a believer in artists, art nonprofits, and museums, and she had worked for Matthew Marks and other galleries, so I soaked all of that up. And there is no one better to go to an overseas art fair with – she is so organized, energetic, and positive. Do yourself a favor and hitch your wagon to hers – you will get 30,000 steps and see every show in town.
What drew you to art advising over other art world careers?
It was a process of elimination: The academic art world of the Whitney Independent Study Program was ideological purity tests - not for me. Then I wrote an art history book – glad I did, but writing was too hard. I loved working at the New Museum, but when I was being honest with myself, what I loved most was post-war painting. It slowly became clear to me that painting nerds and the people who “loved art” and wanted to talk from a starting point of loving art were working closely with artists at galleries, or at auction houses, or running artists’ studios and estates. Or advisors! So then it was advising.
What advice would you give your younger self, just starting out on the path to art advising?
I have always had a ‘Sliding Doors’ fantasy that I worked at a gallery that had an origin story related to my family history. Without going into too much detail, I wish I could trade places with my dear colleague Hanna Schouwink, who is a Senior Partner at Zwirner and has been there since 1998, or something. I love the way Zwirner is run: the artists, the commitment, the “Bring me the Now heritage,” even the architecture… so I would advise myself to get myself a job there and try to make partner and work on the Gerhard Richter shows! It would be there, or what was Michael Werner Gallery (now VeneKlasen). From Otto Freundlich to Eugene Leroy to AR Penck to Raphaela Simon, I think being at MWG would have been like a revelation every day.
