Long before she adeptly chaired the board of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ellen Stirn Mavec inquisitively explored the museum galleries under the watchful eye of the security guards while her mom Cara volunteered at the front desk. Her father Howard was a photographer, so she grew up surrounded by a love of art.
“The museum was really the only place that she would let me go free, and I would explore all the galleries,” she says. “Because Mom was a serious painter, she taught me how to look and see things, so it gave me a great eye for art.”
At Hawken School, Ellen enrolled in an AP art history class taught at CMA, and then went on to earn her BA in Art History at Northwestern University in 1980. She returned to Cleveland to work at the now defunct New Organization for the Visual Arts, where she learned how to write grants and fundraise. Her next job took her to Washington, D.C., for an NEA fellowship where she ended up doing budgets for the State Department.
“I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t want to deal with the numbers,” Ellen says with a laugh. “I wanted to get back to the art.”
Having collected figurines and animals of all kinds when she was young, she revived her love of working with porcelains and ceramics. She moved to London to take a course in European Decorative Arts at Sotheby’s. In 1984, Ellen returned to Cleveland to open the city’s first decorative arts gallery, Ellen Stirn Galleries, in Playhouse Square. The store featured 18th and 19th century European decorative art.
Ellen ran her gallery until 2005, but in 1988, she also become the owner of Potter & Mellen, which she ran for 21 years until 2008. She had started working with The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation in 1982 and was elected President and Chairman of one of the largest private family foundations in Cleveland in 1997 and established the Foundation’s first independently staffed office.
“When I became President, we wanted to make a big difference somewhere, so we focused our grants primarily on University Circle,” explains Ellen, granddaughter of the founders. “The Foundation was founded in 1955, but it really didn’t become major until the ‘80s and early ‘90s. We’ve given more than $100 million to organizations in University Circle.”
Sally Gries, founder of Gries Financial Partners in Cleveland, who’s known Ellen since she was in high school, says, “She has an excellent business sense, and she’s very strong in strategic planning. She’s thoughtful, analytical, thorough and empathetic. She’s highly knowledgeable about the arts and the value of how the arts impact quality of life.”
When not in her office or handling her chair responsibilities for CMA as she has since September of 2022, Ellen’s most likely out for a hike or a bike ride through the MetroParks, enjoying her other passion, nature.
“With the high-quality leadership at our arts organizations, the arts are in a good position now, so we are very fortunate here in Cleveland,” she concludes.