Release Date: July 11, 2014

National Gallery of Art Names Lynne Cooke Senior Curator, Special Projects in Modern Art; New Exhibition to be Organized by Cooke

Lynne Cooke, Senior Curator, Special Projects in Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, in the East Building.
Photo © 2014 National Gallery of Art, Washington

Updated March 20, 2017

Washington, DC―Lynne Cooke, renowned art scholar, will become senior curator, special projects in modern art, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, effective August 11, 2014. During her two-year appointment (2012–present) as Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), Cooke has been engaged in independent research to organize an exhibition about the relationship between mainstream and self-taught artists in 20th and 21st century America, which was distinct from what occurred in western Europe. The exhibition will be presented at the National Gallery of Art, The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

“Although we knew Lynne before she came to CASVA, it has been a pleasure to get to know her better and to follow her research here at the Gallery,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “As we look toward the reopening of the East Building in the fall of 2016 and―pending the court decision―the galleries at the Corcoran, we are excited about the knowledge, contacts, and experience that she brings to our work in modern art and to the Gallery’s special exhibition program.”

Before arriving at CASVA, National Gallery of Art, in 2012, Cooke was deputy director and chief curator at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2008–2012; curator, Dia Art Foundation, New York, 1991–2008; artistic director, 10th Biennale of Sydney, 1994–1996; co-curator, 1991 Carnegie International, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and lecturer, history of art, University College, London University. Cooke has also worked in various capacities at numerous academic institutions including Yale University, New Haven; Malmö Art Academy, Malmö, Sweden; Bard College, New York; and La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Other professional experience includes serving on the editorial board of The Burlington Magazine, 1988 to present, and on the Turner Prize Committee, Tate Gallery, London, 1985.

Highlights of exhibitions she has organized include Cristina Iglesias: A Place of Reflection at Casa Franca-Brasil, Rio de Janiero, 2013; Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, New Museum, New York, and Serpentine Gallery, London, 2012–2013; Blinky Palermo: Retrospective 1964–1977 at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Dia Beacon/CCS Bard College, 2010–2011; Francis Alÿs, Fabiola at Dia at the Hispanic Society of America, 2007 and still touring; Zoe Leonard: You See I am Here After All at Dia: Beacon 2008; Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years, co-curated with Kynaston McShine, at Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007; and the 1996 Sydney Biennale.

Cooke has received many awards and is widely published. In 2013 she wrote essays for the exhibition catalogues Matt Mullican: Subject Element Sign Frame World (Skira/Rizzoli, New York, 2013) and Orthodoxies Undermined, Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2013). She has also authored or written for other exhibition catalogues about the work of such artists as Alighiero Boetti, James Castle, James Coleman, Willem de Kooning, Ann Hamilton, William Kentridge, Agnes Martin, and Richard Serra.

Cooke resides in Washington, DC, and New York City.