Gerard Cafesjian 100th Birthday

April 1, 2025

This April marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Gerard L. Cafesjian (1925-2013), the art lover and Twin Cities businessman whose collection forms the foundation of the CAT Museum.

Mr. Cafesjian was born on April 26, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York, to Armenian immigrant parents.

From an early age, Mr. Cafesjian loved art and sought opportunities to surround himself with it. Although his family did not have much money, Mr. Cafesjian took advantage of free museums in New York City, including the world-class Metropolitan Museum of Art. This deep appreciation for human creativity and unique art forms would stay with him throughout his life.

During World War II, Mr. Cafesjian served in the United States Navy on the USS Oceanographer and the USS Andres.

During the war, he met nurse Cleo Thomas, and after the war they married. Mr. Cafesjian went on to earn an undergraduate degree in economics before attending law school at Hunter College. He began work as a legal editor for West Publishing while still living in New York City. The company then transferred him to Minnesota, where they had their headquarters, thus establishing Cafesjian family roots in the St. Paul area. Mr. Cafesjian eventually became West Publishing’s executive vice president in charge of sales, marketing, and public relations. He retired in 1996.

Mr. Cafesjian collected art throughout his adult life, amassing thousands of beloved objects that he proudly displayed in his residences and offices. His love of the arts and his dedication to philanthropy intersected in many unique ways. Locally, he is perhaps best known for having provided funds to save a historic 1914 carousel, which has been fully restored and now provides joy to riders of all ages at Como Park. However, his impact has been worldwide.  

In 2009, Mr. Cafesjian opened the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in Yerevan, Armenia. This dynamic arts center, which includes a massive museum building known as The Cascade and an outdoor sculpture park, welcomes over one million visitors annually to enjoy contemporary art. Mr. Cafesjian’s dedication to Armenia was also evident in his multifaceted philanthropic work throughout the country. To mark the occasion of his 100th birthday, the country of Armenia has issued a commemorative stamp and coin in Mr. Cafesjian’s honor.

Mr. Cafesjian instilled in his family a spirit of generosity and a love of art. When he passed away in 2013, his vast collection was brought together as the Cafesjian Art Trust. Embracing his legacy as a collector and as a champion of the arts, his daughter Kathie created a free museum in Shoreview, Minnesota to serve as a dynamic hub of creative inspiration and contemporary art. The Cafesjian Art Trust Museum (the CAT) opened in October 2022 and quickly became a beloved Twin Cities gem. The Museum continues to grow its collection, along with its slate of exhibitions and programming. This month, we celebrate the 100th birthday of Mr. Cafesjian while also looking ahead with great excitement to what the next 100 years of the incredible Cafesjian story will bring.

Meet the Curators

March 1, 2025

The CAT Museum is thrilled to have a dynamic new curatorial team at the helm: Dr. Jill Ahlberg Yohe, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Linnea Seidling, Assistant Curator of Glass. Ahlberg Yohe joined the staff in December 2024, and Seidling was recently promoted from her former position as the Museum’s Director of Communication and Events.

Ahlberg Yohe has more than a decade of experience producing innovative exhibitions, scholarship, and programming as an independent consultant and museum curator. She earned her PhD from the University of New Mexico and served for many years at the Minneapolis Institute of Art as the associate curator of Native American Art, during which time she organized notable exhibitions including “Hearts of our People” and “In Our Hands.” In addition to her extensive knowledge of contemporary artists, Indigenous cultures, and the Twin Cities arts scene, Ahlberg Yohe embodies a commitment to meaningful community engagement.

Ahlberg Yohe works closely with Seidling, who has an extensive background in decorative arts and glass history. Seidling holds an MA in the History of Decorative Art, Design, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center in New York City and has worked in curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Corning Museum of Glass.

We sat them down for a discussion about the role of a curator in a 21st-century art museum, their vision for the future of the CAT, and their opinion about the age-old debate: cats versus dogs.

A Love Letter to the CAT’s Collection 

February 1, 2025

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, this month the staff of the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum are sharing what work in the Museum’s collection they love the most. With a collection of over 4,000 works, it was a challenge pick just one! See below what they selected.

Laura Steefel-Moore, Director of Education and Community Engagement:

I’m loving Ronald Merchant’s Red Light, Red Wing. It’s a really pleasant slice of life depicting a warm Minnesota day. The figures in it look unassuming and relatable, so I like imagining myself standing near them, soaking up the bright sunlight.

A 2024 To Remember!

January 1, 2025

2024 was a year of incredible growth and community-building for the CAT Museum. Our team expanded to include a Director of Education and Community Engagement, and we created a brand-new curatorial department, consisting of a Head Curator and an Assistant Curator of Glass. We continued to rely on our volunteers to lead tours and facilitate meaningful experiences for our guests. More than 20 wonderful volunteers gave over 700 hours to the museum last year, bringing the collection to life in a multitude of ways. Click below to access the 2024 Annual Report!

Drop-In Events, Winter Coat Drive, and More at the CAT

December 1, 2024

The holiday season is a time for gathering with those you love and sharing with those in need. This December, the CAT Museum is doing just that! In addition to our regular guided tours by reservation only, guests will have two opportunities this month to visit the museum reservation-free. We are also hosting a winter coat drive all month long, and we’ll need your help to make sure kids in our community can stay safe and warm.

Drop-In Events in December

On Friday, December 6th from 5:30 pm–7:30 pm, the CAT will be open for the perfect cozy night out. See our current exhibition, From Origins to Horizons: The American Studio Glass Movement, and head next door to Churchill Street to purchase a Glass Menagerie, a specialty cocktail inspired by the CAT Museum. This gin martini is flavored with house-made clarified tomato and features a cherry tomato and olive oil garnish. It is a perfect farewell to the warmer weather as we move into winter.

The CAT Museum will also be open to drop-in guests all day on Saturday, December 21st from 10:00 am–4:30 pm. Bring your guests in town for the holidays to see From Origins to Horizons on the last day before it closes.

Winter Coat Drive

The CAT Museum will be collecting youth winter gear all December long on behalf of Project for Pride in Living, a local non-profit that provides affordable housing and career readiness services. When you make your visit to the CAT, bring along coats, snowpants, winter boots, or mittens for children of all ages. New or in-great-condition (no pet hair, stains, or damage) donations only, please.

The CAT Museum is a proud partner of Project for Pride in Living’s LEAP program serving young adults.

Preview of Changes to Come

The drop-in days in December are just a preview of exciting things to come to the CAT in January. Our exhibitions will soon be easier for families, students, and those who work during the week to visit. When our next exhibition Echoes of Life: Paintings from the Collection opens January 24, visitors will be able to drop in every Saturday without making a reservation! Thursdays and Fridays will be business as usual for the CAT, with tours by reservation only at 10 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm. But on Saturdays, you can drop by any time between 10:00 am–4:30 pm. Come when you like, stay as long as you like, and return as often as you like!

The team at the CAT wishes everyone a happy holiday season, and we hope that you include us in your plans this month!

Painting with Gratitude: Joshua Cunningham Revisits a Painting at the CAT Museum

It is a special moment when an artist can see their work on display at a museum. Painter Joshua Cunningham (American, born 1974) recently visited the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum to see his painting, Along the Line, on display in the new Focus Gallery exhibition, Vantage Points: Landscape Paintings from the Collection, open through December 21, 2024. The CAT Museum’s Director of Collections, Ashley Walker, interviewed Cunningham during his visit to learn more about his artistic process, and the painting in the Museum’s collection. Below are excerpts from this conversation that discusses Cunningham’s influences, process, and when he sold this painting to Gerard Cafesjian.

On how he began painting trains:

But [this painting] stood out because…it was a high watermark for me at that time in my life as a painter. To take an idea through several iterations and really continue to flush it out. It’s also a place where my mentor painted…Joe Paquette also painted down and around [Child’s Road in Saint Paul]. He had a real heart for industrial stuff…His dad was a foreman in industrial New Jersey…He taught a workshop in New York….And we’re in this apartment in Soho—someone is hosting us for dinner—and he’s looking out across the Hudson, and he’s like, “That’s where my dad [used to work.} I used to go on Saturdays with my dad to the job sites,” and he starts telling the stories, and this big light goes on in my head: Oh my goodness, he’s not painting industrial stuff to be edgy and cool, that’s actually a part of his childhood. So for me, that opened up parts of my painting life. It opened up a door.

I was such an impressionable student that whatever my mentors were doing, [I was doing]. This is over the top expression—but in the Jewish tradition, when you have a rabbi, you’re doing everything the rabbi does. It’s not just learning what he’s reading. It’s, how is he talking to other people? And so, when I went into my art trainings…I’m trying to learn everything they’re doing because you don’t know which part of it is painting. And then in time…they’re a part of your story. And so then his love of industrial stuff, like for me, the trains….it’s a way of thinking about him, and how grateful I am for what he brought me into. But also, as a kid, my grandpa had a model railroad in his basement that me and my twenty-five other first cousins would get to play with.

Spooky Selections from the CAT Collection

Digging through the CAT Museum’s collection of over 4,000 artworks can sometimes get a little spooky. Our Director of Collections, Ashley Walker, put together a list of the scariest objects she has come across so far. They are listed below from least to most frightening. Only the bravest readers will make it to the end!

1 out of 10 Scaries:

This person In Disguise is both endearing and a little creepy.

Janusz Walentynowicz (American, born Poland, 1956). In Disguise, 1993. Cast glass and steel. 37 3/8 × 10 1/2 × 8 1/2 in. Cafesjian Art Trust 2023.187.1.

2 out of 10 Scaries:

A night spent in this Spirit House would result in a few ghost encounters.

José Chardiet (American, born Cuba, 1956). Spirit House, 1987. Cased, hot-worked, and sandblasted glass. 7 1/4 × 3 1/8 × 3 1/8 in. Cafesjian Art Trust 2023.177.2.

From Origins to Horizons Extended!

The CAT Museum is delighted to announce that our current exhibition, From Origins to Horizons: The American Studio Glass Movement, originally set to close in October, will now be open through December 2024. “The exhibition has been so popular with visitors that we want to give more people the opportunity to enjoy it, as well as welcome back some of our biggest fans,” explains President and CEO Kathie Baradaran. So far, the CAT has provided public tours of this exhibition to 2,100 guests and counting.

Crowd Favorites

Although each work in the exhibition is outstanding in its own way, there are a handful of works that have become visitor favorites. Mark Peiser’s Moon and Landscape and Amber Cowan’s Willie the Mouse with Tractor and Train have without a doubt risen to the top with the CAT’s guests.  

Check out a YouTube video highlighting Moon and Landscape.

Check out a YouTube video highlighting Willie the Mouse with Tractor and Train.

Art from the Great Minnesota Get-Together

For most Minnesotans, the State Fair brings to mind fried food on a stick, baby farm animals, carnival games, and live performances. For Gerard Cafesjian, however, the State Fair was a chance to buy artwork from Minnesota artists. As we gear up for the “Great Minnesota Get-Together” at the end of the month, we wanted to shine a light on Gerard’s love of collecting art at the State Fair.

Gerard’s daughter Kathie, the museum’s CEO and founder, remembers that her father got to know many of the artists who exhibited at the State Fair. It was always important to him to encourage and support local artists, and he did so with gusto! He became such a prolific buyer that he was invited to visit the Fine Arts Exhibition a day early, before it opened to the public. This became an important annual day on his calendar, one he would rearrange his schedule to accommodate. He continued collecting art at the Fair up until 2013, the year he died.

After Gerard’s death, his art collection became a part of the Cafesjian Art Trust. Kathie opened the Museum in 2022 to share the vast and eclectic collection with the public. Although perhaps best known for its holdings in glass art, the Museum’s collection today includes fifty artworks purchased at the State Fair.

Q&A with the Curator: American Studio Glass at the CAT Museum

Two new exhibitions now open at the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum tell the story of American studio glass from its beginnings through today. From Origins to Horizons: The American Studio Glass Movement begins in the mid-1960s when ceramics professor Harvey Littleton hosted a series of workshops to experiment with blowing glass in a small, artist studio setting. The exhibition concludes with work created in the past five years from internationally known glass artists. Midwest Voices in Contemporary Glass, on display in the adjacent Focus Gallery, shows museum guests what artists in our very own region are creating today. In the interview below, Andy Schlauch, the CAT’s executive director and curator of the exhibitions, gives further insight into these exciting projects. From Origins to Horizons: The American Studio Glass Movement, and Midwest Voices in Contemporary Glass are on display at the CAT Museum through October 5^th, 2024.

Q: Why did you want to organize an exhibition about the American Studio Glass Movement?

Andy Schlauch (AS): Since we have such a remarkable and deep collection of glass art, I wanted to develop an exhibition that provides a context for this uniquely American movement. There are so many great artists working in glass, and I hope our guests are intrigued to learn about it.

To learn more and book your visit to the exhibitions, visit us online HERE.

For more on School Programs at the CAT Museum, visit us online HERE.