Release Date: August 11, 2017 (Updated: August 22, 2017)

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Announces New Staff Appointments

Kathleen Williams, newly appointed chief archivist, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Photo by Earl McDonald, National Archives and Records Administration

Washington, DC—Today the National Gallery of Art, Washington, announced four new senior staff appointments in the Treasurer's Office, Library, the Publishing Office, and Gallery Archives, as well as promotions for curatorial staff.

Christine Zapotoczky Kelleher will join the Gallery as chief of investments on September 5, and will guide the Gallery's endowment portfolio alongside its finance committee and Gallery Executive Officer and Treasurer William W. McClure. Kelleher is an experienced institutional portfolio manager who brings a global perspective to asset allocation and risk management, previously having helped manage the endowment portfolio and the investment team at Georgetown University for nine years. Most recently, Kelleher was a managing director at Avec Capital, a boutique, outsourced marketing and business development firm, where she has been responsible for investment sourcing and for guiding the firm to meet institutional investors' priorities.

The Gallery has appointed Roger Lawson to the position of executive librarian. With nearly 38 years of experience in the Gallery Library encompassing technical services (acquisitions, cataloging, and preservation programs), automation initiatives, reader services, and leadership in library professional associations, as well as budget, personnel, and space planning, Lawson will lead and develop what has become one of the world's foremost art historical research institutions. Among the Library's 400,000 volumes are an important collection of rare books, the largest collection of auction catalogs in the United States, current and rare periodicals, and one of the most important art and architecture image libraries in the world with over 14 million photographs, negatives, and digital images.

The Gallery has appointed Emiko Usui as editor-in-chief beginning October 2. Usui has served for the past six years as director of MFA Publications at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), and her 25-year museum career includes senior editorial positions at the MFA, as well as curatorial work at both the MFA and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Usui also held positions at Matrix Group International, an Alexandria-based digital agency specializing in user-focused web design and development, and in technical support at Oracle, the computer technology corporation.

After more than 13 years with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), a division of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Kathleen Williams has been appointed the Gallery's chief archivist and will begin on August 21. Williams joined the NHPRC in June 2004 as the deputy executive director and was named executive director in April 2008. Under Williams's leadership, the commission created new grant programs for digitizing historical records, public engagement with primary sources, and the Archives Leadership Institute. Prior to working at NARA, Williams served for over 20 years as an archivist at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Smithsonian Institution.

For his leadership and outstanding work in research, exhibitions, and installations of modern art, including the recently renovated East Building, curator and head of modern art Harry Cooper has been named senior curator of modern art.

Molly Donovan has been named curator of art, 1975–present, for her diligent work in building the Gallery's collection of contemporary art, fostering relationships with living artists, as well as project leadership on the upcoming exhibition Rachel Whiteread. Kimberly Jones is now curator of nineteenth-century French paintings, appointed for her recent leadership and scholarship on several international projects including the traveling Frédéric Bazille retrospective. James Meyer, previously the chief curator and deputy director at Dia Art Foundation, has returned to the Gallery as curator of art, 1945–1974. While at the Gallery prior to his time at Dia, Meyer was associate curator of modern art and helped facilitate such important acquisitions as the famed Virginia Dwan collection and archives, featured in his exhibition on the history of Dwan Gallery. Diane Waggoner was named curator of nineteenth-century photographs for her scholarship and distinguished exhibitions on British and American photography, such as the recent East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography.

"We are delighted to announce new management-level staff to the National Gallery of Art and to foster professional growth for existing staff," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art, Washington. "I am thrilled to welcome Christine Zapotoczky Kelleher, Emiko Usui, and Kathleen Williams to the Gallery family, appoint Roger Lawson to lead our very busy Library Division, and welcome James Meyer back to the Gallery to continue to cultivate and steward our growing collection of midcentury art. Harry Cooper's work on the East Building reopening with department colleague Molly Donovan has earned them both deserved promotions, and Kimberly Jones and Diane Waggoner continue to produce important and revelatory exhibitions and publications in their respective fields of French painting and photography."

Press Contact:
Anabeth Guthrie, (202) 842-6804 or [email protected]