Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania PRESS RELEASE
Congratulations to LaToya Ruby Frazier on her induction into the Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania, a recognition that honors extraordinary women for their outstanding service and contributions to the Commonwealth.
Governor Josh Shapiro and First Lady Lori Shapiro Recognize Eight Women as 2025 Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania
Velma A. Redmond, of Carlisle, the 26th President of the Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania, announced the new Inductees for the Distinguished Daughters Class of 2025. Governor Josh Shapiro and First Lady Lori Shapiro will recognize the eight women at this year’s Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania annual luncheon at the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg on Wednesday, October 15, 2025.
“Since its inception, the Distinguished Daughters has been honoring extraordinary women for their outstanding service and contributions to our Commonwealth,” said Governor Josh Shapiro. “The women we recognize bring an incredible wealth of experience and knowledge, are leaders in their respective fields, and have showcased extraordinary professionalism in all aspects of their careers. The Commonwealth is proud to claim each of the Distinguished Daughters as our own, as each of their stories reflect Pennsylvania’s rich past and herald the promise of a bright future through collaborative service.”
The members of the 2025 Class of Distinguished Daughters of PA are: Marion C. Alexander, Honorable Kim Berkeley Clark, Laura Ellsworth, J.D., LaToya Ruby Frazier, Roxanna Gapstur, Ph.D., R.N., Katherine A. High, M.D., Rosalind Remer, Ph.D., Ala Stanford, M.D.
Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania was organized in 1949 to honor women who have given distinguished service through their careers to their communities, the Commonwealth and the nation. Since its founding, a total of 566 extraordinary women of Pennsylvania have been recognized for their professional and volunteer accomplishments.
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In 2024, The Museum of Modern Art presented LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity, a landmark survey showcasing the full breadth of the artist’s practice. One year later, curators Roxana Marcoci and Caitlin Ryan, Jessica Bell Brown, and civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill, reflect on the exhibition’s creation, its impact, and the enduring resonance of Frazier’s work in reviving and preserving overlooked histories of labor, gender, and race in the post-industrial era.
Sophia Cohen speaks with New York Liberty Owner Clara Wu Tsai about how she has transformed the Liberty’s home at Barclays Center into a cultural and entertainment hub.
LaToya Ruby Frazier, THE LIBERTY PORTRAITS: A MONUMENT TO THE 2024 CHAMPIONS (2024-2025), 2025. Photography by Daniel Greer at the Barclays Center. Image courtesy of the artist and Gladstone.
I’ve spent my fair share of time in sports stadiums and arenas. Like museums, they are special places where a wide variety of people come together with a common goal to witness excellence. The businesswoman and philanthropist Clara Wu Tsai—who owns the Brooklyn Nets, Barclays Center, and, as of 2019, the New York Liberty—is working to bring the worlds of art and sports closer together. A noted collector, she has been collaborating with artists including LaToya Ruby Frazier, Sarah Sze, and Rashid Johnson to develop ambitious art for the Brooklyn stadium.
I tried my hand at combining these two sectors last year, when I helped develop a line of artist-designed tote bags and hats for the New York Mets. The experience made me eager to connect with Wu Tsai, who has helped Barclays evolve into the culture and entertainment platform it is today. This month, the stadium unveiled a new project by Frazier, the artist’s first public work. Frazier designed nine-foot-tall portraits of each player on the Liberty’s 2024 championship-winning roster—one side features a portrait of a player in uniform, and the reverse showcases the same player with their chosen family.
I chatted with Wu Tsai about what it means to commission with care and what the art world can learn from her masterclass in reaching new audiences.
Sophia Cohen: I’m really happy we’re doing this. I feel there’s a lot of synergy between us—loving art and loving sports. You’re way more actively involved as a co-owner, whereas I’m just the family of [the owner, Steve Cohen is Sophia’s father]. But we both want to bring art out of the white cube. I’d love to hear a little more about the Social Justice Fund, which aims to address systemic inequality in Brooklyn, and the development of your public art projects.
Clara Wu Tsai: The Social Justice Fund started in 2020, and one of our first projects was a public art commission: the neon art installation by Tavares [Strachan] that states, “We Belong Here” in Tavares’s own cursive script. This phrase is somewhat of an anthem of the Social Justice Fund. It is a message that we hoped could instill a sense of agency and a belief that all people in Brooklyn can coexist in beautiful ways. We have a belief that art is a powerful tool for fostering empathy and community. We believe that art should be accessible to all. These themes form the basis for why we want to commission more public art at the Barclays Center.
LaToya Ruby Frazier, THE LIBERTY PORTRAITS: A MONUMENT TO THE 2024 CHAMPIONS (2024-2025), 2025. Photography by Daniel Greer at the Barclays Center. Image courtesy of the artist and Gladstone.
Cohen: You’re working with LaToya Ruby Frazier, Sarah Sze, and Rashid Johnson. I’ve actually worked with Rashid and Sarah Sze on a [New York] Mets project, so I know how excited they are to be more involved in New York sports. Gavin Brown represented LaToya Ruby Frazier when I was working there, so I know her artwork very well, but I’m so curious to hear her take on this project.
Wu Tsai: I met LaToya through the Gordon Parks Foundation in 2023, the year that I was honored at their gala. In my remarks, I talked about how I was motivated to follow Parks’s example in using art and storytelling to bring visibility to the WNBA. That resonated with LaToya because she is a former basketball player and has always wanted to tell their stories. When we met, we quickly discovered our shared passion for basketball and uplifting women athletes.
When we initially talked about her doing a project about the players of the New York Liberty, she was just getting ready to mount her show at MoMA, and so the timing wasn’t right. The following year, we advanced to the championship round for the second time. We thought this was the right time to create a series of portraits of the team.
LaToya focused on making sure the players didn’t feel that she was just a photojournalist. She really embraced the players. She noticed the duality—they’re heroes, but she also wanted to reveal their humanity. In their display cases, the pieces are about nine feet tall. There are family portraits alongside images of each player with their game face on, and there are also family testimonials, which are an essential part of the project. She traveled to their hometowns and took the time to connect with them.
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Yolanda Laney, Karis Melo Laney, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, and Jessie Joy Laney, Brooklyn, New York, 2024, from THE LIBERTY PORTRAITS: A MONUMENT TO THE 2024 CHAMPIONS (2024-2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Cohen: I’d love to talk about bringing the Liberty to Barclays and putting them on an equal playing field with the NBA. What was your mindset in doing that?
Wu Tsai: When we bought the team, they were playing in Westchester County Center, an arena that had a seating capacity of 2,000. In the early days, the team played at Madison Square Garden to crowds of 18,000. So one of the first things we did was bring them to Barclays Center, where the Brooklyn Nets play. The vision was to field a team that could win, bring the old fan base back, and attract new audiences. We believed in the business potential of the WNBA. We started to invest in the team, in player health and wellbeing, and in nutrition and performance. We felt that women’s sports had been underinvested in.
Cohen: As you said before, [working with] artists and athletes can be similar: there’s always a little bit of a dance with what’s possible and where to meet in the middle. I’d be curious to hear about surprises that arose while working with artists or complexities that you found interesting as both a collector and a sports team owner.
Wu Tsai: Realizing the vision for this project was complex. With the Monument to Champions, the idea was conceived by the artist in collaboration with me. When you have an art project involving the entire team, there is a process to get the players to buy in. We invited them to a tour of LaToya’s MoMA show in its final weeks—it was a great way to introduce them to her work, and for LaToya to share more about her process. We wanted to give the team the time to understand and embrace LaToya’s approach to storytelling.
This is her first public art piece. She was very involved in designing the sculptural installation, as much as shooting the portraits themselves. She was interested in the sightlines of the portraits and how they will be experienced by visitors and fans as they move through the plaza and into the arena. Through all the difficulties in scheduling shoots with the players and their families, she was very gracious. Public spaces always have so many unexpected parameters—weather, light, egress. While I am sure that some aspects were not what she had envisioned, she was incredibly agreeable and joyful from start to finish. […]
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The Liberty Portraits honor the New York Liberty’s first WNBA title with images that celebrate players not just as athletes, but as leaders, daughters, sisters and icons.
The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions by LaToya Ruby Frazier at Barclays Center to celebrate the New York Liberty’s first-ever WNBA championship.
A powerful new public art installation, The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions, by acclaimed artist LaToya Ruby Frazier, has been unveiled at Barclays Center. In a powerful intersection of sport, art and social story telling – the portraits celebrate the New York Liberty’s first-ever WNBA championship by turning the spotlight on the athletes not only as professionals, but as human beings with personal stories, and deep roots.
“I was inspired by the Statue of Liberty’s eternal promise,” said Frazier. “I’m interested in creating a bridge between the fans and the team, deepening a sense of compassion and commanding the dignity and respect the team deserves. These portraits are intended to stand as beacons of women’s leadership and the power of sisterhood.”
The nine-foot-tall, double sided portraits stretch across the plaza at Barclays Center. The work celebrates each player as both athlete and individual. One side shows a striking image of a player in uniform; on the reverse, we see each athlete in a deeply personal setting – with their families, in homes and places that shaped them.
The project was spearheaded by Clara Wu Tsai, Vice Chair of BSE Global and Governor of the Liberty, as the inaugural commission in a newly launched public art program at Barclays Center. The program will feature rotating works by contemporary artists.
“It’s an honor for Barclays Center to be home to LaToya Ruby Frazier’s first public art installation—and for the New York Liberty to be her chosen subject,” said Wu Tsai. “This is the inaugural work of a new art program designed to celebrate artists and the creative spirit of Brooklyn.”
The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions by LaToya Ruby Frazier
Drawing inspiration from the Statue of Liberty, the instillation reframes the champions as icons of freedom, power, and possibility. The work is intended as both tribute and a bridge – deepening the connection between team and fans.
The Liberty Portraits is free and open to the public on the plaza at Barclays Center through the 2025 WNBA season. It is not just a tribute to the champs, but a rally for visibility, and recognition for women athletes.
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The first-of-its-kind work by LaToya Ruby Frazier honors the players and their communities
The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions by LaToya Ruby Frazier at Barclays Center to celebrate the New York Liberty’s first-ever WNBA championship.
The parades for the New York Liberty’s historic WNBA championship may be over, but there is still celebration to be had. Today, BSE, the parent company of the Liberty and Nets, unveiled an art installation on Barclays Plaza by the acclaimed LaToya Ruby Frazier honoring the athletes that were a part of the team’s historic season.
Titled The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions, the installation features double-sided photographic portraits of the 2024 roster. One side shows the player in uniform, and on the other, we see the players with their chosen families in places meaningful to them.
Taking photos and interviewing relatives meant traveling across North America. From spending time with Jonquel Jones’ mother at her home in the Bahamas to visiting Marquesha Dra’shawn Davis’s family in Arkansas, Frazier covered a lot of ground. The artist interviewed the players’ families, creating testimonials displayed alongside the portraits. They reveal intimate details about the team, like the etymology of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton’s first name and the story of Sabrina Ionescu’s husband walking away from the NFL to support her through the season. In effect, the photos and testimonials create robust, larger-than-life celebrations of the players and their respective journeys towards winning the championship.
The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions by LaToya Ruby Frazier
“These six-foot portraits—on pedestals that make them nine feet tall—are arranged in this architectural installation that harkens [to] Mount Olympus,” Frazier said. “So when we think of Olympia and athletes, what I’m really doing is bringing the New York Liberty as these goddesses on their own mountain, at Barclays Plaza. They’re photographed in such a monumental way, where they command the dignity and respect of their humanity, and also their athletic excellence. They’re intended to stand as beacons of women’s leadership and sisterhood.”
Hailing from Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier’s photography has hung in solo shows at museums including MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, Seattle Art Museum, and ICA Boston. She is a MacArthur “genius grant” recipient, and her work exists at the nexus of cultural change, social justice, and the American experience.
The installation will be on display throughout the 2025 WNBA season, and is as much for the public as it is for the superfans. “While [fans] are waiting on the line, they will see these double-sided portraits, and because of the story and testimony,” she glowed, “they’ll feel an even deeper connection to the players.”
“It is so important and vital that we transcend race, class, gender, citizenship, sexuality, and you see this transcendence happening collectively and creatively through the way that we made the work,” Frazier added. “All of this is possible because of a collective with so many different people in different roles, believing that this is something worth having and celebrating and loving. And I’m just glad to be able to invest in the New York Liberty creatively and join in the choir of the millions of people who know women in sports is where it’s at.”
For now, Frazier is plenty excited about the installation. It’s hard not to notice the enthusiasm in her voice as she talks about basketball and her love for the Liberty. Basketball has been her first love since she was six years old, and she played until a high school injury ended her career. Her passion for the game is still present and evident.
“This came into existence because I believed that they were going to win last year,” Frazier noted. “I have been obsessively watching the Liberty since 1997. I believe, just like I told the Liberty when I met them, that I believed they were going to win. I told them that before they won, and I truly believe that this piece is going to be outside, in downtown Brooklyn, and they are gonna repeat. I’m just putting that creative energy out there, adding to the energy and the belief that they can do this again.”
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Inside Barclays Center, when the New York Liberty players take the court, most fans (with the exception of the lucky few in floor seats) are looking down on them from the stands. But in this new public art exhibition by LaToya Ruby Frazier, all who pass by Barclays Center will get a chance to look up at the players, feeling awed by their physical strength and touched by their personal stories.
The installation, titled “The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions” celebrates professional female athletes, reflecting the power of female leadership, influence, diversity, and love for the game of basketball and family. The exhibition is open to all who walk past Barclays Center and will be on view through October.
Brooklyn’s own “Mount Olympus in front of Barclays.”
A longtime Liberty fan, Frazier spent time with each of the players on the 2024 roster to photograph them in uniform and also with their chosen family. She then designed double-sized, nine-foot-tall portraits presented in display cases to showcase the work. Frazier said she created the concept in this double-sided fashion as a way to juxtapose two different parts of each player’s identity.
In the athletic portrait, the artist asked players to reflect on their intensity on the court, perhaps even thinking about a moment where they made a mistake and wish they could change their actions. The portraits, powerful and raw in their intensity, show the competitive spirit of women athletes and instantly command respect.
“In order for you to look at them, you’re bending the knee to them,” Frazier told Time Out in an exclusive interview, calling the display Brooklyn’s own “Mount Olympus in front of Barclays.”
For the second set of portraits, Frazier visited the players in locations meaningful to them, including spending time with Jonquel Jones’ family in the Bahamas and visiting players in Texas, Arkansas and Alabama, among other locations. Over the years, Frazier has noticed the way players have been talked about in the media, and she wanted to instead capture their dignity and humanity.
“There’s a tenderness to who they are when they’re not on the court,” Frazier said. “Though we are projecting on them as superfans, this is somebody’s daughter, someone’s mother, someone’s niece. You cannot disrespect them. They are human beings.”
In addition to exploring Frazier’s visual storytelling, fans can also read a first-person story written by a loved one of each player. For example, Jones’ mother wrote a stirring testimony about her daughter’s early years growing up in the Bahamas and dreaming of playing in the United States. For Breanna Stewart’s portion, her wife Marta Xargay Casademont shared deep insights into the couple’s early dating years, family life and views.
The piece itself really shows the real power of sisterhood and collectivity and unity and what it means to see the fullness of someone’s humanity and to respect it.
“What these players’ families have to say, I think is going to move and compel people,” Frazier told Time Out. “It’s going to give them a new perspective on the Liberty and inspire them. There’s a lot of life lessons in terms of what they’re sharing and everything they went through, from their struggles to their victories.”
Though Frazier is a renowned artist who has exhibited at MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, ICA Boston, Seattle Art Museum, and museums across Europe, this is the first commissioned public art exhibition for the Pittsburgh-area creative. She credits her bond with Clara Wu Tsai, vice chair of BSE Global (parent company of the New York Liberty) for making it happen. Frazier believes it was Wu Tsai’s eye for art that compelled her entrust Frazier to build the monumental artwork.
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