At 20, Galerie Myrtis Continues to Champion Black Artists in Baltimore

When The Walters Art Museum mounted the exhibition Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe in 2012, Dr. Myrtis Bedolla saw an opportunity. She approached chief curator Dr. Joaneath Spicer about a collaboration, one where contemporary artists represented by her own Galerie Myrtis would create new works in direct response to the exhibition. Spicer not only said yes, she generously met one-on-one with Bedolla’s roster, sharing her research.

“The work they created was informed by all this scholarship,” says Bedolla. “We called it the ‘new knowledge,’ because there was historically this notion that all Africans in Europe during that period were enslaved, when in fact they were not.”

Featured alongside works by Black Renaissance masters were now-Baltimore-based artists, including the multidisciplinary Jeffrey Kent and a young painter by the name of Amy Sherald, whom Bedolla represented at the time. In the end, visitors from across the country came to witness this creative change and correction of the artistic historic record.

This magical moment was just one among many over the past two decades of Galerie Myrtis, Bedolla’s brick-and-mortar space located on North Charles Street in Old Goucher. And it captures something essential about how Bedolla has built this gallery—by putting artists in conversation with history, with institutions, with each other, with ambition, clarity, taste, and stewardship.

Bedolla grew up in Chicago, where her parents were devoted collectors who instilled in her a love of art. She sharpened her professional instincts in Washington, D.C., where, with Creative Artisans, she helped artists develop their portfolios as an advocate, representative, and advisor.

Those relationships organically evolved into her becoming a curator and gallerist. In 2006, she opened her first exhibition space in Capitol Hill and, in 2008, she moved Galerie Myrtis to Baltimore.

“It’s a city with a deeply rooted creative community,” she says, “one that is both historically rich and unapologetically authentic.”

From the beginning, her work reflected a clear mission. She would create a platform for African-American artists whose work she knew was vital but underrecognized and subsequently undercollected. The milestones have accumulated steadily since. By 2022, a partnership with Christie’s placed her artists in the secondary market alongside blue-chip names.

“It signaled to collectors and institutions that they belong in those conversations,” she says. “More importantly it expanded the possibilities for how their work could circulate and be valued globally.”

That same year, an invitation came to curate the Venice Biennale.

This anniversary year offers a moment of reflection. The gallery’s annual Art of the Collectors exhibition brought together works by African-American and African Diasporic artists, from emerging talents to celebrated masters. In hallmark Galerie Myrtis style, informed and creative programming ran alongside the exhibition, including a sold-out special edition of her intimate salon-style conversation series, Tea with Myrtis, always free to the public.

“Building community is just as important as mounting exhibitions,” says Bedolla. “The two are inseparable.”

In this next chapter, assistant director Ky Vassor and director of sales Noel Bedolla, Myrtis’ son, will take on more of the curatorial work and artist roster development. That includes newly signed artists from the who’s who of local Black artistic talent—photographer Devin Allen, painter Jerrell Gibbs, and collagist Bria Sterling-Wilson—which has Bedolla particularly energized about the future.

As for her role, the founder is focusing on writing projects, curatorial projects, and deeper institutional conversations.

“The canon,” she says, “is still being written, and I intend to have a hand in that.”