Our Founders - Visual Thinking Strategies

Abigail Housen

Abigail Housen is the co-founder of Visual Understanding in Education and the co-author of the VTS curriculum. Housen received her Ed.D from Harvard in 1983 and has pioneered aesthetic development research for over 30 years. She was Professor of Art Education and Director of the Graduate Program at Massachusetts College of Art, and has served as consultant and evaluator to numerous museums and schools. Housen's research into the stages of aesthetic development provided the theoretical foundation for VTS. Her longitudinal research studies on the impact of VTS have shown that, in addition to growth in aesthetic understanding, VTS supports the growth of creative and critical thinking skills, which transfer to other subject areas. In Memoriam: Abigail Housen

Philip Yenawine

As co-founder of Watershed Collaborative, Philip Yenawine continues to develop new ways of supporting VTS adoption in schools and museums in the U.S. and abroad. Philip is the co-founder of Visual Understanding in Education (VUE) and the co-author of the VTS curriculum. He has been developing curricula and professional development that is used in hundreds of schools and institutions around the world since the early 1990s. Philip was the Director of Education at the Museum of Modern Art, New York from 1983-93. He also worked in 1992-94 as consulting curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art, and during the academic year 1993-94, as visiting professor of art education at Mass College of Art, both in Boston. He is on the Board of Art Matters, a foundation supporting contemporary artists. Yenawine is the author of How to Look at Modern Art, Key Art Terms for Beginners, and has written six children’s books about art. His most recent book, Visual Thinking Strategies: Using Art to Deepen Learning Across School Disciplines, was published by Harvard Education Press in October 2013.

As Creative Director at Watershed Collaborative, Philip continues to work closely with teachers and inquiry-based learning. He remains an ambassador for VTS, speaking at museums and other forums around the world.