Anne Helmreich Named Director of the Archives of American Art
From the press release (15 December 2022) . . .
Anne Helmreich, the incoming director of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art (Photo by Loli Kantor).
Anne Helmreich has been named the director of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, effective 27 February 2023. Helmreich is currently the associate director of grants programming at the Getty Foundation and brings 35 years of experience in higher education and arts administration to this new role.
The Archives of American Art fosters advanced research by accumulating and disseminating primary sources that document more than 200 years of the nation’s artists and art communities. Helmreich will oversee its Washington, D.C., headquarters and research center, New York City research center, and Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery. She will also oversee its collections development, exhibitions, and publications, including the Archives of American Art Journal, the longest-running scholarly journal in the field of American art. Additionally, Helmreich will lead the Archives’ digitization program and the stewardship of its holdings consisting of some 30 million items and an oral-history collection of more than 2,500 audio and video interviews, the largest accumulation of in-depth, first-person accounts of the American art world.
“Anne understands how effective and impactful art can be in recording and expressing the American story,” said Kevin Gover, the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Museums and Culture. “Her track record as a successful administrator, educator and user of the Archives of American Art made her the obvious choice to conserve this vital collection and to make its holdings even more accessible to the art world and beyond.”
As associate director of grants programming at the Getty Foundation, Helmreich supports individuals and institutions committed to advancing the greater understanding and preservation of the visual arts in Los Angeles and throughout the world. Through strategic grant initiatives, it strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to museum and archival collections and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts.
She also represents the Getty Foundation in the LA Arts Recovery Fund, which supports small to mid-sized arts organizations in Los Angeles.
Helmreich has been awarded over two dozen grants, published two books, edited five collections, written 19 book chapters, published 20 scholarly papers, and contributed to over half a dozen exhibition catalogs. At the Archives of American Art, Helmreich aims to expand its digital offerings, foster an inclusive and diverse culture that represents the many communities and histories that make up the United States and establish the Archives as America’s preeminent storyteller for the arts.
“I am very excited to help move the Archives of American Art into the future by making it more accessible to more researchers from all backgrounds and by expanding public engagement,” Helmreich said. “The Archives’ unique collections have helped generations of art historians record and study American art, and by digitizing and diversifying our collections and our programming for new audiences, we will continue to reflect the history and future of America through this important lens.”
Previously, Helmreich served as the inaugural co-chair of the Getty DEAI Council, the associate director of digital initiatives at the Getty Research Institute, the dean of the College of Fine Arts at Texas Christian University, and director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities and associate professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University. Helmreich holds a Bachelor of Arts from Dickinson College, a Master of Arts in art history from the University of Pittsburgh, and a doctorate in art history from Northwestern University.
Liza Kirwin, deputy director of the Archives of American Art, has served as interim director.
Mei Mei Rado Joins Bard Graduate Center as Assistant Professor
From the BGC press release (11 November 2022). . .
Bard Graduate Center (BGC) announces the appointment of Assistant Professor Dr. Mei Mei Rado, who will begin teaching at BGC on 1 January 2023. Drawing on her specialties in textiles, dress, and decorative arts in both China and France, Dr. Rado’s research and teaching at BGC will focus on the history of East Asian and European textiles and dress in broader transcultural contexts, featuring deep object-based knowledge and a global perspective. Dr. Rado’s expertise complements the interdisciplinary research of Bard Graduate Center’s faculty and will help expand BGC’s programs in textile and fashion history, Chinese art and material culture, and European decorative arts and design history.
“Dr. Rado brings extraordinary intellectual energy and seriousness to the study of dress, textiles, and fashion,” said Peter N. Miller, Dean of Bard Graduate Center. “She also firmly establishes East Asia as a center of curricular and research strength. But her interest in cross-cultural communication adds still further depth to something BGC does very well.”
Mei Mei Rado stated, “One of my goals is to champion BGC’s diverse, interdisciplinary research and teaching. I look forward to collaborating with faculty in different fields and approaching textiles and dress from multiple academic angles and cultural perspectives. BGC’s unique exhibition program also enables me to continue and expand my curatorial practice. I am grateful to BGC Director and Founder Susan Weber and Dean Peter Miller for this opportunity, and I’m honored to continue the legacy of BGC Professor Emerita Michele Majer, who has trained generations of textile and fashion scholars, including myself.”
Dr. Rado has lectured and published on 1920s French textiles and fashion, chinoiserie and Japonisme fashion, twentieth-century Chinese textiles and fashion, eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Qing court arts, and interior draperies in eighteenth-century France. Her forthcoming book The Empire’s New Cloth: Western Textiles at the Eighteenth-Century Qing Court investigates European silks and tapestries that entered the Chinese court and Qing imperial productions inspired by European models. It recounts a multipolar story from both cultural ends, showing how objects, styles, and images traveled in multiple directions replete with reinvented meanings.
Before joining BGC, Dr. Rado was the Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles at LACMA. She also held fellowship positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, and the Palace Museum, Beijing. Dr. Rado earned her B.A.at Nanjing University, her M.A.at the University of Chicago, and her Ph.D. from Bard Graduate Center.
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