Emily Ballew Neff

Emily Ballew Neff

Emily Ballew Neff is the Executive Director of Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Previously, she served as Wylodean and Bill Saxon Director and Chief Curator of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, and has been President of Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) since May 2013. She also served as the first curator of American Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where she helped the trustees and institution’s leadership establish a significant presence for the museum in the field of American art, grew the museum’s collections by more than 30 percent, built a dynamic patron support group, organized more than 20 exhibitions at the museum, and coordinated 14 traveling shows from other institutions. Interested in organizing exhibitions that push the field of American art in new and innovative directions, Neff most recently mountedAmerican Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World, which received praise for its innovative approach to exhibition colonial art in a global context. Its exhibition catalogue earned an award from Tyler Green as MAN’s best art book of the year for 2013. Other exhibitions includeThe Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950, a show of more than 100 paintings and photographs, including paintings of the Santa Fe Indian School, that examined the role the American West played in the development of American modernism, andJohn Singleton Copley in England, based on her dissertation on the same subject, which revealed the entrepreneurial role the Boston colonial painter played on London’s 18th-century artistic stage. An exhibition particularly celebrated in Houston,American Made: 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presented in 2012, highlighted for the first time in the museum’s history the superb quality and dramatic expansion of its collection. Neff also authoredFrederic Remington: The Hogg Brothers Collectionat the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the first major catalog to document this historically important collection and the Hogg family patron who created it. She has also served as a frequent lecturer and teacher, and served in 2010 as the H.E.R.E. Distinguished Lecturer at Rice University, Houston. Neff holds a B.A. in Art History from Yale University, an M.A. in Art History from Rice University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a recent Fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York City.  

Articles Related to Emily Ballew Neff

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2012-10-25

CCL Announces Class of 2013

Program Expands with International Participants New York, October 25, 2012 – The Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) is proud to announce the selection of its sixth class of Fellows. The Class of 2013 will comprise ten outstanding curators who begin their training in New York in January.  Carlos Basualdo, Keith L. and Katherine Sachs ... Read More >

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2015-02-22

Alumni in the News | Judith Dolkart Dives in as Director of Addison Gallery

  Judith Dolkart (CCL '13) Dives in as Director of the Addison Gallery During CCL, Judith served as deputy director of art and archival collections and Gund Family Chief Curator at the Barnes Foundation, where she helped plan the relocation of the collections from Merion to the Foundation's new building ... Read More >

Photoset of Ash-Milby, Futter, Neff, Rand

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 >

Core Advancement

2015-02-25

Emily Ballew Neff (CCL '13) Named Executive Director of Memphis Brooks Museum

Congratulations to Emily Ballew Neff (CCL '13) on her recent appointment as executive director of the Memphis Brooks Museum. Currently the president of the The Association of Art Museum Curators, Emily served as the first curator of American Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where she organized ... Read More >

Core Advancement

2019-10-09

Judith Dolkart (CCL 2013) Named Deputy Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts

Congratulations to Judith Dolkart (CCL 2013) who has been named Deputy Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts!  Dolkart has served as the director of the Addison Gallery of American Art at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts since 2014. Prior to joining the Addison Gallery, Dolkart was the deputy director of ... Read More >

Core Advancement

2021-12-08

Emily Ballew Neff (CCL 2013) Appointed Director of San Antonio Museum of Art

Emily Ballew Neff (CCL 2013) has been named Director of the San Antonio Museum of Art!  Most recently, Neff served as director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art for six years. While at the Memphis Brooks, she oversaw the museums’s relocation to a new building in downtown Memphis and instituted ... Read More >