Nancy Kay Anderson is curator and head of American and British paintings at the National Gallery of Art. She has held various curatorial and scholarly positions at the Gallery since 1984. A graduate of Mills College and The University of Washington, Seattle, Anderson received her Ph.D. in 19th- and 20th-century European and American art from The University of Delaware in 1985.

Anderson has been exhibition curator and principal author for three catalogues: George de Forest Brush: The Indian Paintings (2008), Frederic Remington: The Color of Night (2003), and Thomas Moran (1997). She was also co-curator and co-author for Tell It with Pride: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Augustus Saint Gaudens’ Shaw Memorial (2013), American Modernism: The Shein Collection (2010), and Albert Bierstadt: Art and Enterprise (1991). Among her other publications are “The John Wilmerding Collection: A Scholar’s Gift to the National Gallery of Art” (2004) in Magazine Antiques, “Reflecting on Ruins” (2001) in Journal of the West, and “Albert Bierstadt: A Letter from New York” (2001) in Archives of American Art Journal.

Anderson held the J. Paul Getty Paired Fellowship for Research in Conservation and the History of Art and Archaeology (2005) at the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA). She was also a predoctoral fellow (1982–1985) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Anderson received several Wrangler Awards (2004, 1998, 1991) from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, for her exhibition catalogues. She has lectured numerous times on artists such as Frederic Remington, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, and George Catlin.

Anderson’s current projects include a complete catalogue of The Paul Mellon Collection of Paintings by George Catlin at the National Gallery of Art and preparations for an exhibition and publication focused on the American Pre-Raphaelites.