C. D. Dickerson joined the National Gallery in 2015 as curator and head of the department of sculpture and decorative arts and became senior curator of European and American art in 2022. He previously spent eight years at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth as curator of European art. The exhibitions he curated there include: From the Private Collections of Texas: European Art, Ancient to Modern (2009-10); Bernini: Sculpting in Clay (2012-13); The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of Seventeenth-Century France (2016-17); and Casanova: The Seduction of Europe (2017).

While leading the department of sculpture and decorative arts at the National Gallery, Dickerson has been responsible for several key acquisitions, including Luisa Roldán’s Virgin and Child, David d’Anger’s Comte Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe, an important 17th-century northern European nautilus cup, and one of the rare poem jars by the enslaved African American potter David Drake. His first exhibition at the National Gallery was Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain (2019), which won the prize for the best book in Spanish art history for 2019. In 2023, he curated Canova: Sketching in Clay, an exhibition focused on the brilliantly expressive terracotta models of the sculptor Antonio Canova.

Dickerson received his PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and his BA from Princeton University.