LILLIAN YOUNG ’18 combines passions for art and education in her job as family programs coordinator for the Brooklyn Museum, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year. Young works to engage guests age 6 and under at the institution, which in 1913 became one of the first American museums to create its own education department.

“Because I see a lot of these kids all year,” Young said, “I get to see them grow.”

Since joining the museum in 2022, Young has launched two popular and free programs that invite families into the galleries to create art — Sunday Art and Saturday Sketch Club.

Lillian Young earned her BFA from TCU in 2018. Photo by Carolyn Cruz

Young, who did internships with the Kimbell Art Museum and Smithsonian Institution and taught preschool art classes while earning a studio art degree at TCU, has also continued her work as a Black historical artist.

Her 2022 master’s thesis from Michigan State University included the “Black Elder Archives,” 10 portraits of individuals who experienced segregation, including her grandmother Patricia Brown and Fort Worth-based civil rights activists Opal Lee and Bob Ray Sanders. In 2023 exhibitions at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center and Ro2 Art Gallery in Dallas, Young paired the paintings with a sound dome playing audio of interviews she conducted with each subject.

“I spliced it together so it sounds like they’re just having a conversation with each other,” she said. “A lot of my old professors from TCU came to the opening.”