Lynne Cooke, renowned curator and art scholar, is senior curator in the department of modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art, after being appointed senior curator for special projects in modern art in 2014. She first joined the National Gallery in 2012 as Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (The Center), where she engaged in independent research for Outliers and American Vanguard Art, an exhibition about the relationship between mainstream and self-taught artists in the United States from the early 20th century to the present.

Before arriving at The Center, Cooke was deputy director and chief curator at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain (2008–2012); curator at the Dia Art Foundation in New York (1991–2008); artistic director at the 10th Biennale of Sydney (1994–1996); co-curator of 1991 Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh; and lecturer in history of art at University College, London University. She has also taught at Yale University, Malmö Art Academy, CCS, Bard College, and La Trobe University.

Cooke is the curator of Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, which will open at the National Gallery of Art in March 2024. Other exhibitions she has organized include Cristina Iglesias: A Place of Reflection  (Casa Franca-Brasil, 2013); Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, New Museum, and Serpentine Gallery, 2012–2013); Blinky Palermo: Retrospective 1964–1977  (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Dia Beacon/CCS Bard College, 2010–2011); Francis Alÿs, Fabiola at Dia (Hispanic Society of America, 2007 and touring); Zoe Leonard: You See I Am Here After All (Dia Beacon, 2008); Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years, co-curated with Kynaston McShine (Museum of Modern Art, 2007); and the 1996 Sydney Biennale.

Cooke has received many awards and is widely published. She has authored or written for art journals, including Artforum and The Burlington Magazine, and exhibition catalogues about the work of such artists as Alighiero Boetti, James Castle, James Coleman, Willem de Kooning, Sonia Delaunay, Ann Hamilton, Zoe Leonard, Agnes Martin, Richard Serra, and Bill Traylor.

Cooke received her PhD from London University, focusing on the early works of Willem de Kooning, her MA from the Courtauld Institute, and her BA from Melbourne University. She resides in Washington, DC, and New York City.