by Jeroslyn JoVonn
February 19, 2025
For the museum veteran, the job is ‘the appointment of a lifetime.’
Anne Collins Smith has formally been appointed chief curator of the New Orleans Museum of Artwork (NOMA).
She started the place in September 2024, however NOMA made the official announcement on Feb. 13, Biz New Orleans experiences.
“This appointment is the chance of a lifetime and an affidavit to perseverance and my dedication to curatorial apply. I look ahead to advancing NOMA’s mission and shepherding exemplary artwork experiences with our dynamic group of curators,” Smith mentioned.
“The artwork historian Mary Ann Calo speaks of how curators function interlocutors between artwork, artists, and the group. This precept continues to information me via my profession.”
Smith oversees NOMA’s assortment and exhibition efforts, managing a group of curators, conservators, and collections employees. She can also be answerable for the museum’s fashionable and modern artwork shows, and brings important experience in African American artwork.
She will even lead revolutionary methods for NOMA’s assortment and exhibitions to make sure they align with trade finest practices whereas addressing the museum’s wants. Upcoming initiatives embrace planning the reinstallation of components of the everlasting assortment and curating retrospectives of artists Hayward Oubre and Willie Birch.
“The museum’s everlasting assortment of artwork spanning 5,000 years is on the middle of every thing we do,” mentioned Susan M. Taylor, The Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of NOMA. “Anne Collins Smith is an completed curator, artwork historian, and museum chief, and we’re thrilled to welcome her to NOMA on this essential place. Her expertise in establishments throughout the nation and her perspective as a local New Orleanian make her an essential addition to our employees.”
Smith’s in depth background consists of roles because the director of the Xavier College of Louisiana Artwork Gallery, Curator of Collections on the Spelman School Museum of Effective Artwork in Atlanta, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow on the Davis Museum and Cultural Middle at Wellesley School, and serving as a Romare Bearden Fellow on the Saint Louis Artwork Museum.
In 2021, she was honored with a prestigious Middle for Curatorial Management fellowship. Smith earned her MA in visible arts administration from New York College and her BA from Spelman School.
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