Barbara Isenberg has been writing and lecturing about arts issues and personalities for three decades. Formerly a staff reporter for both the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, where she remains a frequent contributor, she has also written for Time, Esquire, The Nation and London's Sunday Times. In addition to her latest book, Conversations with Frank Gehry, she is also the author of Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical, and State of the Arts: California Artists Talk About Their Work."

A Los Angeles Times best-seller, Conversations with Frank Gehry was written while she was in residence at the Getty Center and reflects her interviews with the celebrated architect over the past 20 years. The Los Angeles Times Arts & Books wrote that “Gehry’s long relationship with Isenberg has produced a level of trust and familiarity that allows him to open up in ways he has rarely done publicly,” while the New York Times Book Review said “Isenberg offers worthwhile new information for architecture devotees and an engaging introduction for general readers.” The Library Journal called her book “a gold mine for scholars and the general public.”


Founder and host of the Getty Center’s Art Matters public interviews, she received a Distinguished Artist Award from the Los Angeles Music Center, has been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute and is currently Associate Director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC. She lives in Los Angeles.

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