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 stories.
“This appointment is the chance of a lifetime and an affidavit to perseverance and my dedication to curatorial apply. I sit up for advancing NOMA’s mission and shepherding exemplary artwork experiences with our dynamic workforce 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 by means of my profession.”
Smith oversees NOMA’s assortment and exhibition efforts, managing a workforce of curators, conservators, and collections employees. She can also be chargeable for the museum’s trendy and modern artwork shows, and brings important experience in African American artwork.
She may even lead progressive methods for NOMA’s assortment and exhibitions to make sure they align with business greatest practices whereas addressing the museum’s wants. Upcoming initiatives embody 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 all the pieces we do,” mentioned Susan M. Taylor, The Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of NOMA. “Anne Collins Smith is an achieved 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 Tremendous Artwork in Atlanta, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow on the Davis Museum and Cultural Heart at Wellesley School, and serving as a Romare Bearden Fellow on the Saint Louis Artwork Museum.
In 2021, she was honored with a prestigious Heart 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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