Team & Board
Hannah Turpin oversees the growth, maintenance, logistics, and research of the collection. They are an art historian and curator focused on 20th century and contemporary art, particularly as it pertains to queer identities and artistic practices not broadly included in the art historical canon. Turpin’s past exhibitions include Heavenly Realms: Works by Eriko Hattori (SPRING/BREAK ART FAIR, Los Angeles, 2023); Elle Pérez (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 2021); Counterpressures (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 2020); and The Self Realized: queering the art of self-portraiture (Brew House Association, Pittsburgh, 2019). Turpin is currently on the board at Artists Image Resource. They earned an MA in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York, and has worked at such institutions as Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh and The Leslie Lohman Museum, New York. They can be contacted at hannah@obrienartfoundation.org.
Marty O’Brien is an art advocate and collector based in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. From 1982 to 2022, O’Brien built and ran as CEO his own insurance company, Allied Insurance Brokers, Inc., which is recognized for its niche industry and specialized expertise. He is a self-taught enthusiast of late 19th and 20th century American art with a history of researching and collecting work for nearly twenty-five years. O’Brien established the O’Brien Art Foundation to help preserve and celebrate works by the great American artists of their time, many of whom have fallen outside the mainstream historical canon. He is an active member of the American Fellows patron group for the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; a longtime board member of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA where he currently heads the museum’s Collections Committee; and serves on the Federal Reserve Art Advisory Board, Washington, D.C. O’Brien was also a longstanding board member of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C. where he was instrumental in bringing into the collection major archives of artists including Fred Becker and Herman Maril. In 2021, Marty O’Brien participated in a panel of collectors for the Oklahoma Museum of Art’s exhibition, Moving Vision: Op and Kinetic Art from the Sixties and Seventies, which constituted a significant reevaluation of Op and Kinetic art. A recording of the talk can be found here. He can be contacted at marty@obrienartfoundation.org.
Chris Walther is a Los Angeles-based private gallerist, art advisor and consultant who focuses on 20th Century American Art. He previously served as a corporate attorney in positions of increasing responsibility, including most recently as the Chief Legal Officer of a Fortune 500 company in the entertainment industry. Before embarking on a legal career, Walther worked at museums in his native Kentucky. He is a summa cum laude graduate in History and Spanish from Centre College, Kentucky, and The University of Kentucky College of Law. Walther also studied art history at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He is a member of the American Fellows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Walther has given works to the collections of the O’Brien Art Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Lisa Gordon first fell in love with art while studying at the University of Pittsburgh where she accidentally majored in art history by taking so many courses on the subject. Her original favorite genre was Northern renaissance art due to its complicated symbolism that offered clues within its paintings. Gordon’s second major was English Writing nonfiction, and she had a career as a news reporter at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Today Gordon is a senior pricing reporter for Fastmarkets AMM where she oversees domestic ferrous scrap price settlements in all U.S. domestic markets as well as in Canada. These prices are benchmarks for the US steel industry. Gordon and O’Brien are partners. Her free time is spent investing time and energy in their blended family of children and grandchildren.
Deborah Drake is an independent consultant specializing in governance, impact investing, risk management and inclusive finance. She has worked in international economic development for more than three decades with a focus on microfinance and responsible investment which has taken her around the globe. She is a board director of several entities investing in or providing financial services to low-income men and women in emerging markets. Based in Boston, Drake is Marty’s sister and deeply committed to advancing the Foundation’s mission and objectives.
Beau R. Ott is a collector of abstract geometric American art from the 1960s and ‘70s. He is an avid researcher with an acute interest in artists whose work challenged the status quo. Ott has a special interest in the conservation of plastics and kinetic art. He has loaned works from his collection to museum and gallery exhibitions across the U.S. as well as in Berlin and in Abu Dhabi. Ott has given works to the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was interviewed by The Getty for a documentary and has spoken on panel discussions at the Eric Firestone Gallery and at the Catskill Art Space. Ott currently sits on the Collections Committee of the Delaware Art Museum and on the Board of Advisors for the Forrest and Debra Arch Myers Sculpture Garden and Museum. Since 2016, he has been writing a monograph on the 60-year career of the American sculptor Forrest Myers. Ott has spent most of his career as a business analyst for two of the largest companies in the contingency fee auditing and medical device industries. He resides in the Philadelphia metropolitan area with his artist wife Anna.
Tres Whitlock is a dedicated family man and accomplished professional residing in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. Raised in Fox Chapel, PA, Tres developed a strong foundation for his future success. He graduated from The Kiski School, and his academic journey led him to Allegheny College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Tres’s career flourished, culminating in his role as the President of Allied Insurance Brokers, Inc, a position he held until the company’s acquisition by Arthur J. Gallagher in 2019. Currently, he leads Gallagher Pittsburgh’s dynamic team of over 75 insurance professionals in Western PA, specializing in innovative insurance and risk management solutions. Beyond his professional achievements, Tres has a deep-rooted passion for art, which was sparked by his father, Marty O’Brien’s collection and fervor. Tres is committed to advancing the goals and objectives of the O’Brien Art Foundation.
Discover professional and academic learning opportunities with the O’Brien Art Foundation.
Sarah El-Hefnawy, BA in Museum Studies and Psychology, with a Minor in Studio Arts 2025. Curated an exhibition about figurative abstraction within early 20th centurymodernism.
Carson Sanov, BA in Art History University of Pittsburgh 2022, OBAF Intern Spring 2022. Curated an exhibition about labor as depicted by female printmakers of the 1930s and 40s
