Riverside Art Museum Names Vivian Zavataro as Executive Director

The Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, California, has appointed Vivian Zavataro as its next Executive Director, effective 1 October 2026. The museum announced the news on its official social media accounts — Instagram, Facebook, and Threads — on 24 August, followed by broader coverage on 27 August (ArtNews).

Zavataro joins the Riverside Art Museum from the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University in Kansas, where she has been part of the leadership team. She is described in the museum's own press materials as an internationally experienced museum leader and curator (Riverside Art Museum).

The Riverside Art Museum, known locally as RAM, occupies a historic downtown building designed by architect Julia Morgan — the same architect behind Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. The museum stages rotating exhibitions of contemporary and regional art and runs community education programmes, functioning as both a gallery space and a civic cultural centre for the Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles.

For a mid-sized regional museum, the appointment of a director with an international curatorial background signals ambition. The Ulrich Museum, Zavataro's current institution, sits on a university campus and focuses on modern and contemporary art with a collection that includes works by artists such as Andy Warhol and Henri Matisse. Moving from a university art museum in the American Midwest to a community-focused museum in Southern California brings a different set of audiences, donors and programming pressures.

The museum's press release, published on its official website, confirmed the 1 October start date. No details have been disclosed about the museum's search process, the size of the candidate pool, or Zavataro's specific strategic priorities for the institution. The announcement also did not name her predecessor or address the circumstances of the vacancy.

Zavataro's appointment was shared across all three of the museum's active social platforms — Instagram, Facebook and Threads — within the same day, indicating a coordinated rollout. The Instagram post was published on 24 August (Instagram), as was the Facebook announcement (Facebook).

Zavataro takes the helm at a time when small and mid-sized museums across the United States are navigating tightened budgets, shifting post-pandemic attendance patterns and evolving conversations about whose stories galleries choose to tell. What her programming vision will look like in practice will begin to take shape when she arrives on 1 October.