The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has appointed Leah Dickerman as a curator in the department of painting and sculpture.
She will begin her new position at MoMA in early 2008, reporting to John Elderfield, chief curator, department of painting and sculpture. Her responsibilities will include the development of special exhibitions, acquisitions, collection research and new research programs. Dickerman, who will replace Joachim Pissarro, is currently acting head of the department of Modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art (NGA), Washington, D.C.
For the past six years, Dickerman has been associate curator in Modern and contemporary art at the NGA. Dickerman was co-curator (with Laurent LeBon) for the exhibition “Dada,” 2005, a major survey of the international Dada movement, which was shown to critical and popular acclaim at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, at the National Gallery and at MoMA, where it was coordinated by curator Anne Umland. “Dada” was noted as “Best Thematic Exhibition 2006” by the American Association of Art Critics, and its catalog, edited and with essays by Dickerman, was recognized by the American Association of Museum Curators as Best Museum Exhibition Catalog.
Most recently, Dickerman was the coordinating curator for “Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris,” 2006, shown at the NGA and organized by Frances Morris, Tate Modern, and Christopher Green, Courtauld Institute. As curator, Dickerman organized “The Cubist Paintings of Diego Rivera: Memory, Politics, and Place,” 2004, a survey of Rivera’s Cubist work of 1913 to 1915, which opened at the NGA and toured to the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.
For MoMA, Dickerman was a guest co-curator, with Peter Galassi and Magdalena Dabrowski, of “Aleksandr Rodchenko,” 1998, a major retrospective of the artist’s work in all media, which traveled to a number of museum venues in Europe. For the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, 1996, and the Harvard University Art Museums, she organized “Building the Collective: Selections from the Merrill C. Berman Collection,” which examined the use of graphic design in the early Soviet Union.
Previously, Dickerman held teaching positions in the art history departments at Stanford University, California, and at the University of Delaware.
Dickerman has contributed numerous essays to exhibition catalogs, scholarly journals and magazines, and has lectured widely, organized symposia and led and participated in panel discussions.
Dickerman holds a doctorate in art history and archeology from Columbia University. She completed her undergraduate work at Harvard-Radcliffe College with a bachelor of arts in history and literature.
