Catherine Futter

Catherine Futter is the Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She was previously the Louis L. and Adelaide C. Ward Senior Curator of European Arts. She has completed several reinstallation projects, a major international loan traveling exhibition and numerous contemporary art and design exhibitions. A specialist in 19th through 21st century European and American decorative arts and design, Catherine has focused on the interaction between different cultures and their influence on the decorative arts.

Catherine has served on the Museum's Strategic Leadership Group since 2009 and currently is the manager of the museum’s initiative for a cultural arts district, involving civic, institutional and neighborhood partnerships for improved connectivity through infrastructure. She is co-chair of the Career Support Committee of the Association of Art Museum Curators, a mentor for the 2012-2013 year of the AAMC Mentoring Program and serves as a mentor for MINDDRIVE, a program for at-risk high school students.

“Every day I reflect on how CCL gave me the ability to think more strategically and effectively in all aspects of my present and future work.”

Articles Related to Catherine Futter

2013-11-07

CCL Announces 2014 Fellows

The Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) named its 2014 class of Fellows, recognizing twelve art museum curators with a track record of exceptional work and the potential for even more significant contributions as future leaders in the field. This is the seventh class of CCL Fellows and the largest to date with individuals ... Read More >

2015-03-12

CCL Alumni in Action | March 2015

Current fellow Kathleen Ash-Milby  (CCL '15) has been appointed a guest curator on the curatorial team for SITE Santa Fe's upcoming biennial exhibition series, SITElines.2016: New Perspectives on Art of the Americas. Kathleen is an Associate Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in New York, ... Read More >

2016-10-11

Curatorial Chat | Eva Respini on rethinking the promise of a ‘contemporary’ collection

  Eva Respini began as the Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) in March 2015. Since then, she has been mounting an ambitious program of temporary exhibitions alongside installations drawn from the ICA’s growing permanent collection. Respini’s current exhibition, First Light: A Decade of Collecting ... Read More >

2018-04-30

Curatorial Chat | Zoë Ryan at the helm of the Art Institute’s architecture and design department

Zoë Ryan joined the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 as the inaugural Neville Bryan Curator of Design, and in 2011 was named chair of the Department of Architecture and Design. Ryan’s tenure marked an expanded scope for the museum and its collection with the introduction of design to the ... Read More >

2020-01-02

Catherine Futter (CCL 2014) Named Senior Curator of Decorative Arts at the Brooklyn Museum

Catherine Futter (CCL 2014) has been named Senior Curator of Decorative Arts at the Brooklyn Museum. Futter joins the Brooklyn Museum from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art where she has been a member of the curatorial staff since 2002, first as the Helen Jane and R. Hugh “Pat” Uhlmann Curator ... Read More >

2020-08-25

Zoë Ryan (CCL 2014) named Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania

Zoë Ryan (CCL 2014) has been named Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania.  Zoë will join the ICA in November following 14 years at the Art Institute of Chicago, most recently serving as the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design. A curator ... Read More >