Want Art In Your Embassy? There’s a Job For That

Did you know the State Department has its own art director?

The Diplomat's newest season just dropped, promising viewers a fresh batch of intrigue surrounding career diplomat Kate Wyler (played by Keri Russell), who has a turbulent time serving as the American ambassador to the U.K.—while navigating an equally turbulent personal life. We’re already Googling “how to get employed by the Department of State,” but, as with any Netflix-brand spin on real-life scenarios, it also never hurts to ask just how accurately on-screen events mimic reality.

In episode 1 of the show’s first season, Kate’s husband and the former ambassador to Lebanon, Hal Wyler (played by Rufus Sewell), is asked about what art he wants to display in the couple’s new London abode. Apparently, the previous diplomats took most of their art home, leaving only a Titian in the drawing room as a “donation to the house.” Per Hal, the couple has no paintings of their own to speak of.

But the scene’s got it wrong. In fact, it glazes over a little-known government post that you’ve likely never heard of: the Department of State’s director of Art in Embassies. Indeed, the State Department has a visual arts subsection, which flexes the country’s “soft power” via installations in U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide, artist collaborations, and more. Unlike what is portrayed in The Diplomat, ambassadors don’t just decorate the walls themselves; the Art in Embassies department makes it happen.

Believe it or not, this office has been around for over six decades—conceptualized, as it was, by the Museum of Modern Art in 1953 and then formalized by President John F. Kennedy 10 years later. Each director of Art in Embassies is directly appointed by the president, and fresh heads of state can either choose to tap a new appointee for the role or continue with the current director. Currently, this unusual office is helmed by Megan Beyer. "It's famously an office that people don't know exists," Beyer tells ELLE DECOR.

Beyer started her career in broadcast journalism, but her path took a turn after her husband, U.S. Representative Don Beyer, was nominated by Barack Obama to serve as the ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein in 2009. "He had many, many briefings which held some surprises for us, [like the fact that] he would be able to sit down with a curator from Art in Embassies and decide what he wanted for the backdrop of the residence—what would not only turn that residence into our home but also America's home in Switzerland," she tells us.

Beyer also learned that embassy art could (and should) transcend the function of simply being eye candy fit for wooing powerful guests. In Switzerland, for instance, her official residence boasted paintings of places where her husband hiked the Appalachian Trail. Whenever visitors would lay eyes on these works of art, this would give him an opening to "talk about camping and hiking, and that obviously would bring up the idea of the climate and Obama's progressive position," Beyer tells us. "It is a way to have the ambassador... tell the people of that country who they are individually, as well as [how] that aligns with the story of America.

In 2015—thanks to the standout events and humanitarian projects she organized while abroad—Beyer got a call from the Obama administration to be the director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, where she ran the Turnaround Arts education program, hosted Medal of Arts dinners, and led the cultural mission to Cuba.

In 2022, Beyer took the reigns at Art in Embassies—a job that entails not only developing some 60 exhibitions per year across the department's 200 diplomatic facilities worldwide but also sourcing art for individual ambassadors. She acts as a sort of advisor by "reflecting what [they] want to do diplomatically," per Beyer.

That sometimes includes reevaluating past representations of power. In one of the residences Beyer worked on, guests were originally greeted by a floor-to-ceiling portrait of Thomas Jefferson. A female ambassador who recently moved in kindly requested the following from her: "Would you mind if we put it elsewhere in the apartment?"

"The rituals and symbols around leadership—we need to take all of that into account," Beyer shares. "She understood the power of this painting."

There's a perception of curators as gatekeepers: cultural arbiters who decide which artists and artworks deserve to be seen. Aware of this notion, Beyer ensures her team is constantly featuring a rotation of emerging artists, like Haiti-born Didier William, whose work currently hangs in the Switzerland embassy; Arely Moroles, featured in the Mexico embassy; John Paul Morabito—who, per his website, "engages queerness and the sacred through the medium of tapestry"—displayed at the embassy in Lesotho; and more.

Eighty percent of any exhibition staged by Art in Embassies consists of loaned art, with the remaining 20 percent made up by about 1,500 pieces that have been generously gifted to the office. You can find works by titans like Ansel Adams, Georgia O'Keefe, and Jackson Pollock, but also contemporary names like Courtney Mattison, Mark Bradford, and John Grade.

At the end of the day, Beyer appreciates the rare shoutout her work gets in hit TV shows like The Diplomat, while still being cognizant of the fact that it's not a complete picture. She once saw Rufus Sewell—the actor who plays Hal Wyler on the show—at the White House Correspondents Dinner and knew something had to be said. "First, I told him how wonderful he was, but then I said, 'You know, in two minutes of entertainment programming, you wiped out 60 years of the accomplishments of my office!'"

Beyer is also quick to mention that there's nothing apolitical about her responsibilities: "We did have some issues in various years regarding congressional support, and the last president did not even choose to appoint a director of our office."

Ultimately, Beyer loves what she does because it provides an opportunity to convey the ideas and ideals our nation stands for, which are often hard to put into words: "A diplomat can only try to make you understand, but art can make you feel."

Stacia Datskovska is the assistant digital editor at ELLE DECOR, where she covers news, trends, and ideas in the world of design. She also writes product reviews (like roundups of the top firepits or sheet sets)—infusing them with authority and wit. As an e-commerce intern at Mashable, Stacia wrote data-driven reviews of everything from e-readers to stationary bikes to robot vacuums. Stacia’s culture and lifestyle bylines have appeared in outlets like USA Today, Boston Globe, Teen Vogue, Food & Wine, and Brooklyn Magazine.

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