Founder & President

ABIGAIL S. RISCHIN

Abby Rischin is the founder and president of Step Into Art, Inc. Abby designs and teaches Step Into Art programs, builds partnerships with schools and community organizations, and leads a devoted team of educators and teaching artists. Since founding Step Into Art in 2005, Abby has developed programs introducing over 6,500 children and young teens to art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Harvard Art Museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Peabody Essex Museum.  Abby established Step Into Art programs through a successful five-year partnership with the Newton Mayor’s Office for Cultural Affairs and subsequently expanded Step Into Art to reach children in schools all over Boston. Making school partnerships the organization’s singular focus from 2010 forward, Abby currently leads and teaches programs that serve hundreds of Boston students each year. Abby holds an A.B. degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Yale University. Recognized for her outstanding teaching, Abby received the Yale College Prize Teaching Award. She also created a popular Yale College seminar, “Narratives of Art: Nineteenth-Century Fiction and the Visual Arts.” She has garnered generous research and study grants from numerous institutions, including the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Abby and her husband David live in the Boston area and have two daughters. Abby’s family helped inspire the creation of Step Into Art two decades ago.