2023 Art Classic Judge
Seth Hopkins
Seth Hopkins was the Booth Western Art Museum’s first employee, hired as executive director in 2000. Since then he has guided the museum in Cartersville, Georgia, to becoming a world class, 120,000-square-foot Smithsonian-Affiliated museum. Today, the Booth is the largest permanent exhibition space for Western art in the country and has been named the #1 Art Museum in America in the USA Today Readers Choice Awards for three years in a row, from 2020 to 2022.
Hopkins earned his undergraduate degree from Syracuse University and received his masters from Oklahoma University under the tutelage of legendary Western art historian Byron Price. His master’s thesis, Andy Warhol Played Cowboys and Indians, became a national traveling art exhibition in 2019, making stops at The Eiteljorg in Indianapolis, The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and The James in St. Petersburg, FL. All together, he has curated or co-curated almost 100 art exhibitions.
Hopkins has published articles in American Art Review, Western Art Collector, Western Art and Architecture, Art of the West, and Persimmon Hill. In 2010 he received the Flourish Award, given annually to a leader who has helped the arts flourish in Georgia. In addition, Southwest Art Magazine included Hopkins on its list of 10 prominent people who are “making noteworthy contributions to the art world.”