Deborah Zafman, Ph.D.

I’m proud to share a birthday with Picasso. I'm a polyglot whose wanderlust led me to live in Jerusalem, Florence, Berlin and Paris. I’m an art historian, art critic, curator, former gallerist, art advisor and appraiser. I’m also a vibrational sound therapist, student of nada yoga (yoga of inner sound), ordained Zen nun, tennis addict and a closet mystic and poet. I consider myself “Jewdorian” (half Ashkenazi and half Ecuadorian) and I was born and raised in California.

I am beholden to art and driven by a desire to preach and teach about art’s liberating power.

“Deborah’s intelligence, diligence, extraordinary good nature, and personal warmth are an all too uncommon combination with in the field.”

— James Steward, Director, Princeton University Art Museum

Art offers us a path of liberation. Art cultivates our humanity, strengthens empathy, and welcomes us into worlds of endless possibility.

I’ve spent my life seeking aesthetic experiences and realized from a very young age, that Art (all forms of creative expression) invites us along a mystical path leading to liberation and bliss. At seven I knew I was a poet, then at seventeen, I dreamed of becoming a composer of microtonal music (with hindsight I realize I should have become an experimental sound poet. Then 35 years later, I became a certified vibrational sound therapist and a devoted student of Naada Yoga (the yoga of inner sound).

My incarnations in the visual art world span decades: I’m an art historian with a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, an art writer publishing numerous essays in exhibition catalogs, reviews in Art Press and texts for Christie’s auction catalogs, an assistant curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and the Museo d’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato. Italy. I ran a thriving contemporary art gallery in Paris, called galerie deborah zafman. Then, when I returned to the U.S. in 2010, I became an art advisor, broker, and certified fine art appraiser with the Appraisers Association of America all the while continuing to teach about art’s power to transform us. Following all of these exepriences, I realized that who I truly am is The Art Evangelist.

I didn’t become an art evangelist, I was born one. Although it took years to uncover my true identity, I can now say with conviction that I was put on earth to be Art’s ambassador and my mission is to show you how to engage deeply with Art so that you will experience liberation and bliss. My mission is not only to bring you closer to art but to be your guide in how to LET ART IN so that it enriches, enhances, and elevates your life… - it’s not about remaining a distant, impartial observer of art/creative expression, it’s about entering into an inter-relational exchange that gives you so much - energy, inspiration, life force, goosebumps, chills down your spine, and empowered, magical ways of being more connected to the world and others so you’ll be brimming with aliveness.

Sylvie Fleury, *Modern Muse*, 2019, purple neon, 22.24 x 70.87 inches

Frederic Leglise, *Deborah dancing*, 2022, oil on canvas, 16 x 12 inches

Confessions of an Art Evangelist:

A Multimedia Memoir

A live performance weaving art, memory, and revelation

Purchase Tickets

What is Confessions?

Blending live narrative, rare archival images, and immersive video, Deborah Zafman invites you into her lifelong devotion to art as a force of transformation. This intimate multimedia memoir charts a journey from art historian to gallerist to Art Evangelist, revealing how art awakens, liberates, and heals.

When & Where

• Date & Time: Wednesday, January 14th, 2025, 7:30PM EST (Doors open 7:00pm)

• Location: Montclair State University, John J. Cali School of Music, Leshowitz Hall

• Format: Live performance

In the News

Press Release

On Wednesday, January 14th, 2025 at 7:30PM, the public premiere of "Confessions of an Art Evangelist: A Multimedia Memoir" will be staged at Montclair State University’s John J. Cali School of Music, Leshowitz Hall. Created and performed by Deborah Zafman, Ph.D. — art historian, writer, appraiser, former gallerist, and thought leader — this one-woman show offers an unforgettable evening of storytelling and art. Seating is limited to 180 tickets only. Doors open at 7:00 PM.

More Information:

Deborah Zafman’s journey through the art world spans decades and multiple roles, each of which surfaces in Confessions of an Art Evangelist. As a gallerist in Paris, she championed artists at the cutting edge of contemporary practice, shaping exhibitions that brought new voices into the spotlight. As an art historian and appraiser, she has navigated the highest levels of the international art market, handling masterworks by iconic names while also grappling with the complexities of value, legacy, and cultural meaning.

But the show also unveils the more intimate, vulnerable layers of her life in art. Zafman shares her experiences as a collector, revealing what it means to live with art as a daily companion, not just as an object of scholarship or commerce. She recounts her time as a model for artists, exploring the strange alchemy of being both subject and witness, body and muse.

These confessions are woven together with rare archival photographs from her gallerist years and rich audio-visual content — including video projections and carefully chosen soundtracks. The result collapses the boundary between public and private, the professional and the personal.

The performance is at once intellectual and sensual, blending cultural history with raw confession. It invites the audience into the tension between art as transcendence and art as flesh, between its capacity to lift us toward the divine and its power to awaken desire.

Zafman’s work as The Art Evangelist reflects a lifelong conviction: that art is not an accessory to life but a force that penetrates, transforms, and liberates. Confessions of an Art Evangelist crystallizes that vision into an evening that is as provocative as it is illuminating — a performance equally at home on a university stage, a theater, or within the walls of a museum.