Participants from CCL Class of 2011

Stephanie D'Alessandro

Stephanie D'Alessandro

Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Modern Art and Curator in Charge of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art

Stephanie D’Alessandro is the Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Chicago, specializing in art of the Weimar Republik. She began her career at the Art Institute in 1998 as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow and has also organized several exhibitions for Chicago, including Poetics of Scale (2003). Most recently, she oversaw the installation of the collection in the Art Institute’s Modern Wing (2009 and 2014) and curated the major exhibitions, Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-17 (2010); Picasso and Chicago (2013); and Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938 (2014). Prior to joining the Art Institute, D’Alessandro was Associate Curator at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago. 

Among other projects, D’Alessandro is at work on a comprehensive scholarly catalogue of the museum’s works by Henri Matisse (2016).

Andria Derstine

Andria Derstine

John G. W. Cowles Director

Andria Derstine was named John G. W. Cowles Director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) at Oberlin College in 2012; she previously held curatorial positions there and at the Detroit Institute of Arts. She has curated numerous exhibitions of Renaissance through contemporary art, several in conjunction with such institutions as the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, and the Yale University Art Gallery. Her scholarly expertise is in 17th-18th century French and Italian art; her dissertation, from NYU, was on the French Academy in Rome and the Accademia di San Luca during the period 1660-1740. Among her numerous publications are the catalogues Allen Memorial Art Museum: Highlights from the Collection (2011) and Masters of Italian Baroque Painting: The Detroit Institute of Arts (2005), as well as essays and articles on Venetian 18th-century art, Nattier, and Monet.

Dan Finamore

Dan Finamore

Russell W. Knight Curator of Maritime Art and History

Daniel Finamore is the Russell W. Knight Curator of Maritime Art and History at the Peabody Essex Museum where he has organized over fifteen exhibitions. A graduate of Vassar and Boston University, he received the Dissertation Award from the Society for American Archaeology for his outstanding PhD research. He has conducted archaeological field research from Sable Island to Belize, some of which contributed toward the groundbreaking exhibition and book Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea. He has served on the executive council of the International Congress of Maritime Museums and as a director of the Institute for Global Maritime Studies. He has written over 40 articles and chapters for academic and popular publications, and is the author and/or editor of seven books. His recent exhibition and book on ocean liner design was co-organized with the V&A and, in partnership with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, he is currently at work on In American Waters, an exhibition which will re-envision the role of the sea in more than 200 years of American painting.

Toby Jurovics

Toby Jurovics

Chief Curator & Richard and Mary Holland Curator of American Western Art

Toby Jurovics is the Chief Curator and Holland Curator of American Western Art at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. Prior to joining the Joslyn, Mr. Jurovics was a curator of photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Princeton University Art Museum. This past spring, he organized the first major retrospective on Timothy H. O’Sullivan in three decades, Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan and has organized numerous exhibitions by contemporary artists, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Barbara Bosworth, John Gossage, Emmet Gowin, and Edward Ranney. He has lectured widely on American landscape photography, and is the author of essays on Thomas Joshua Cooper, John Gossage, Emmet Gowin and the New Topographics. A dedicated champion of mid-career and emerging artists, he has endeavored to create exhibitions and programs that reach both popular and academic audiences while engaging vital contemporary issues. Mr. Jurovics holds a B.A. in art history and English from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and an M.A. in art history from the University of Delaware.

Griffith Mann

Griffith Mann

Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge of the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters

Dr. C. Griffith Mann was appointed The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge of the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters in September, 2013. In this role, he is responsible for the medieval collections and curatorial staff in the Met’s main building, and for directing the staff and operations of The Cloisters, the branch of the Metropolitan Museum dedicated to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. Dr. Mann received his B.A. in art history and history from Williams College, and his Ph.D. in medieval art from The Johns Hopkins University. A specialist in the arts of late medieval Italy, he has published on civic patronage, painting, and devotion in Tuscany. Prior to working at the Met, Dr. Mann served as Deputy Director and Chief Curator at The Cleveland Museum of Art (2008-2013), and the Director of the Curatorial Division and Medieval Curator at The Walters Art Museum (2002-2008).

Roxana Marcoci

Roxana Marcoci

The David Dechman Senior Curator and Acting Chief Curator of Photography

Roxana Marcoci is The David Dechman Senior Curator and Acting Chief Curator at MoMA, N.Y. She holds a PhD in Art History, Theory and Criticism from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. For the past twelve years she has led the Central and Eastern European section of MoMA's global research initiative known as C-MAP. Marcoci has curated major exhibitions with award-winning publications, among them: Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear (2022); Louise Lawler: WHY PICTURES NOW (2017); Zoe Leonard: Analogue(2015); Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness (2014); The Shaping of New Visions: Photography, Film, Photobook(2012); Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters (2012); Sanja Iveković: Sweet Violence (2011); Staging Action: Performance in Photography Since 1960 (2011); The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today (2010); Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making (2007); Thomas Demand (2005). She made numerous other shows within the New Photography and Projects series. Marcoci is visiting critic in the graduate program at Yale University and is currently at work on the exhibitions An-My Lê: Between Two Rivers (2023); and LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity (2024).

Olivier Meslay

Olivier Meslay

Dena and Felda Hardymon Director

Olivier Meslay is Associate director of Curatorial affairs, Senior curator for European and American Art and the Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. From 1993 to 2006, he was curator at the Painting department at the Louvre in charge of British, Spanish and American Art. From 2006 to 2009, he was chief curator for the Louvre Lens Project. From 2003-2006, he was in Charge of the Louvre-Atlanta project. He curated exhibitions on British Art: D’outre Manche, British Art in French Public Collections, 1994, Constable, selected by Lucian Freud, 2002, British art in the collections of the Académie, William Hogarth at the Louvre, 2006-2007. He published extensively on British art and France. He also published on early relationship between American art and France and organized exhibitions on the same subject as, Les artistes américains et le Louvre, Paris, musée du Louvre, 2006. The same year, he released to the public La Fayette: Database of American Art - Works by United States artists from the French Public collections. This website, updated in 2010, offers more than 3000 files. He also published in 2013 for the Louvre the  « Catalogue des peintures britanniques, américaines et espagnoles du musée du Louvre ».

Since his move to Dallas he curated exhibitions like Chagall beyond ColorHotel Texas, An art exhibition for the President and Mrs John F. Kennedy and a 19th century european works of paper exhibition Mind’s eye.

Jeannine O'Grody

Jeannine O'Grody

Deputy Director, Chief Curator

In memoriam, 1965–2016

Jeannine A. O’Grody was Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Birmingham Museum of Art. She received her PhD from Case Western Reserve University; MA from Syracuse University’s Florence Fellowship Program; and BA from the College of William & Mary.

Prior to arriving in Birmingham in 2000, O’Grody worked at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and was a National Endowment for the Arts Curatorial Fellow at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum. Her area of expertise was Italian Renaissance art.

While completing her doctorate, O’Grody lived in Italy for several years, where she researched sculptural models and Michelangelo’s creative process for her dissertation Un Semplice Modello: Michelangelo and His Three-Dimensional Preparatory Works. She subsequently published articles and catalogue entries on Michelangelo and on the Baroque sculptor, Gianlorenzo Bernini. O’Grody lectured widely in the field of Renaissance and Baroque Art, including the popular lecture: “The Art of Leonardo: The Da Vinci Code Deciphered,” which was given at numerous museums throughout the country.

O’Grody organized exhibitions such as Methods and Media: Drawings from the Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art and Old Masters to Modern Methods: Prints from the Birmingham Museum of Art. She was also the curator for the Birmingham presentation of Sacred Treasures: Early Italian Paintings from Southern CollectionsThe Triumph of French Painting: Masterpieces from the Museums of FRAME, and The Essence of Line: French Drawings from Ingres to Degas. O’Grody organized Leonardo da Vinci: Drawings from the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, which featured eleven rare drawings and the Codex on the Flight of Birds.

Her areas of research interest included old master drawings, prints, the creative process, patronage, and fifteenth through eighteenth century European sculpture.

Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor

Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education

Dr. Michael R. Taylor is the Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia. A native of London, England, Taylor received Master of Arts degrees in Art History from both the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. He also received his Ph.D from the Courtauld Institute, where he wrote a dissertation on the work and ideas of Marcel Duchamp. Prior to his appointment at VMFA in May 2015, Dr. Taylor served as the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1997 to 2011, as well as the head of the department of modern and contemporary art. In 2011, Taylor was a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York City, which prepared him for the transition from curator to museum administrator. In June of that year, Taylor was appointed Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, a position he held until March 2015. A scholar of Dada and Surrealism, Dr. Taylor has organized a number of important exhibitions during his career, including Giorgio de Chirico and the Myth of Ariadne (2003); Salvador Dalí: The Centennial Retrospective (2004); Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective (2009); Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés (2009); and Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris (2010). In 2010, Dr. Taylor’s exhibition catalogue, Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés, won both the prestigious George Wittenborn Prize and first prize for best museum permanent collection catalogue by the American Association of Art Museum Curators. Also in 2009, Taylor was co-commissioner with Carlos Basualdo for the Bruce Nauman exhibition at the American Pavilion for the 53rd Venice Biennale. The exhibition won the Golden Lion award for best national pavilion. He is currently working on the exhibition Man Ray: The Paris Portraits, 1921-1939, which will open at VMFA in July 2021. 

Beth Venn

Beth Venn

Former Chief Executive Officer