Reesey Shaw is the founding Director of Lux Art Institute, an art organization whose mission is to educate and engage viewers by providing access to living artists at work.

As the former Director and Vice President of Visual Arts at the California Center for the Arts Museum, Shaw presented artists with the opportunity to create work on site — an idea that she continues to champion today at Lux.

A graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art, Shaw received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine art. She began her career as an artist and art historian, lecturing at Claremont Graduate University, University of California, San Diego, and Morgan State University in Baltimore.

Upon moving to La Jolla, California in the 1970s, Shaw exhibited at galleries and museums locally as well as in Los Angeles and New York. In the mid-‘80s her personal work evolved to include curatorial and administrative ideas that she cultivated as head of the gallery for the Felicita Foundation. Shaw later became the founding director of the California Center for the Arts Museum
in 1994.

With the support of local art patrons and philanthropists, Shaw assumed the position of founding director of Lux Art Institute in 1998. This unique institution was created in response to a need for accessible contemporary art as well as a cultural and educational presence in San Diego’s vibrant North County.

Under Shaw’s leadership, Lux has evolved from an innovative vision in 1998 to a full-blown reality. November of 2007 marked the opening of the Artist Pavilion, Lux’s first permanent facility. Designed by Renzo Zecchetto Architects, AIA, the state-of-the-art facility serves as a place for international artists to live and work, and provides the public access to the often elusive creative process.