Communications Associate

Diane Roby has worked in arts-related businesses for 35 years as an artist, assistant to artists, art instructor, publicist, writer, and editor. She has curated exhibitions, written articles and reviews for Artweek and other publications, and coordinated and edited catalogues, brochures, and printed materials for artists, galleries and museums. She is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Diane has been affiliated with David Perry & Associates for fifteen years, writing press materials for the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco Opera, The Magic Theatre, Museum of Craft & Folk Art, Chabot Space & Science Center, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and other clients. In 1996 she founded RED Communications in San Francisco, offering services in public relations, media campaigns, and event planning. Clients have included UC Berkeley Art Museum (2004-05); Other Minds (2001–09); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (1993-99); Stanford University: William Saroyan Archives at Stanford University Library (1997), the inauguration of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford (1998-99), and the reopening of Stanford’s Green Library (1999); International Schools Campus, San Francisco (1996, 1998); The Mexican Museum (PR Director, 1990-92), and other clients who include musicians, dancers, architects, designers, and limited-edition fine press publishers. In 1996 she organized dedication ceremonies at United Nations Plaza to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the U.N. in San Francisco and of the International Declaration of Human Rights, in coordination with the Office of the U.N. Secretary-General and the mayor’s office.

For twenty-five years she has done visual arts research, artist management, curatorial services, publications coordination and editing, with Anne Kohs & Associates, for artists who include Manuel Neri, Oliver Jackson, Charles Ginnever, and Frank Lobdell. She has also catalogued artwork for artists Nathan Oliveira, Joan Brown, Mark Adams, Beth Van Hoesen, Gustavo Ramos Rivera, City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others. She has edited numerous artist monographs, including Beth Van Hoesen: Catalogue Raisonne of Limited-Edition Prints, Books and Portfolios (2011); Frank Lobdell: The Art of Making and Meaning (2003); and Manuel Neri: Early Works (1996). She began her arts career at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, working for five years as an assistant to director Paul Mills for Spanish cultural projects, coordinating directly with officials of the Museo del Prado, Museum of the Americas in Madrid, Spanish embassy and consulates, and the Spanish Royal Household, including direct meetings with the King and Queen of Spain. Prior to that, she spent two years living in Madrid, where she studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and worked as a printer’s assistant at fine press publisher Grupo 15.

Diane taught drawing at San Jose State University, West Valley College (Cupertino), Foothill College (Los Altos Hills), and Dominican University (San Rafael), where she also curated exhibitions in the Alemany Library Gallery. She has an MFA in Spatial Arts from San Jose State University (1994), and a BA in Studio Art from UC Santa Barbara, where she was a student of Howard Warshaw. She is a member of the Society of Independent Artists in San Francisco, which in 2011 awarded her an Honorary Doctorate. She is a certified instructor of Hatha Yoga, and for the past ten years has been yoga instructor at Skyline College in San Bruno.