National Gallery of Art Appoints Natalia Ángeles Vieyra as Associate Curator of Latinx Art

Washington, DC, April 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (Leer en español) The National Gallery of Art announced today that Natalia Ángeles Vieyra will join the museum as associate curator of Latinx art. She will begin on July 1. This position is made possible thanks to a $500,000 grant from the Getty Foundation as part of the Advancing Latinx Art in Museums (ALAM) initiative with the support of the Mellon, Ford, Getty, and Terra Foundations.

Vieyra will play a vital role in supporting the museum’s work in collecting, researching, and exhibiting masterpieces across the broad spectrum of American art. As part of the department of modern and contemporary art, Vieyra will join a team of seven curators devoted to the museum’s 20th- and 21st-century collections and exhibition program. As a specialist and advisor in Latinx art, she will contribute to the museum’s continued acquisitions, exhibitions, permanent collection displays, scholarship, and public service in the field. The National Gallery’s collection includes works by significant Latinx artists such as Ana Mendieta, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Rupert García, Carmen Herrera, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Freddy Rodríguez, Christina Fernandez, Miguel Luciano, and Martine Gutierrez, among others. Vieyra will work to expand, study, and interpret this evolving collection of modern and contemporary Latinx art. As the field of Latinx art spans history and media, Vieyra will collaborate with other curatorial departments to integrate Latinx art and perspectives within the museum’s overall program.

“This is an exciting moment for the National Gallery of Art, as we inaugurate a new position that will increase visibility and scholarship of Latinx art and help us better serve our national community,” said E. Carmen Ramos, chief curatorial and conservation officer. “We are thrilled to welcome Natalia Ángeles Vieyra as our first curator of Latinx art. The span of Natalia’s scholarship and curatorial practice, from late 19th- to early 20th-century Puerto Rican art to contemporary art, is well suited to the National Gallery’s transhistorical collections. As a scholar of Latinx art myself, I look forward to supporting Natalia as she helps expand our collections and develops projects that illuminate the ideas and practices of Latinx artists and what they say about art and our world today.”

A curator and art historian, Vieyra has worked and studied extensively in the areas of US Latinx, Latin American, and Caribbean art, spanning from the 19th century to the present. Her dissertation focused on the Puerto Rican artist Francisco Oller within the larger context of the Americas. Over the course of her career, Vieyra has worked to place contemporary Latinx artists and communities in dialogue with historic works of art, drawing connections between the past and current issues. As the associate curator of American art at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, Vieyra led the acquisition and long-term loan of a variety of works by Latinx, Latin American, and African American artists, including close collaborations with the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and private collections in Puerto Rico. As the Maher Curatorial Fellow of American Art at the Harvard Art Museums, she developed innovative curatorial and educational programs that placed the work of important artists such as Ana Mendieta, Juan Sánchez, and Enrique Chagoya in dialogue with Latinx audiences. During her tenure she contributed to and curated numerous exhibitions, installations, and rotations, including De los Andes al Caribe: El arte americano desde el imperio español/From the Andes to the Caribbean: American Art from the Spanish Empire and Prints from the Brandywine Workshop and Archives: Creative Communities.

“I am incredibly honored to join the National Gallery of Art at this pivotal moment in its history. I am excited to connect with and inspire Latinx communities through art, and to champion Latinx artists on the national stage,” Vieyra said.

Vieyra has held fellowships at the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She has also worked as a guest curator and curatorial assistant at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and as a research and curatorial assistant at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Vieyra holds a PhD in art history from Temple University and a BFA in graphic design from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

*About Advancing Latinx Art in Museums*

ALAM is a multiyear funding collaboration that seeks to nurture and prioritize Latinx art in the United States. The Mellon, Ford, Getty, and Terra Foundations have committed a combined $5 million to the initiative, which has provided 10 grants of $500,000 to institutions in the US and Puerto Rico in support of the creation and formalization of 10 permanent early and mid-career curatorial positions with expertise in Latinx art. Learn more here.

*About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation*

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.

*About the Ford Foundation*

The Ford Foundation is an independent organization working to address inequality and build a future grounded in justice. For more than 85 years, it has supported visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. Today, with an endowment of $16 billion, the Foundation has headquarters in New York and 10 regional offices across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Learn more at fordfoundation.org.

*About the Getty Foundation*

The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the greater understanding and preservation of the visual arts in Los Angeles and throughout the world. Through strategic grant initiatives, the Foundation strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to museum and archival collections, and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts. It carries out its work in collaboration with the other Getty Programs to ensure that they individually and collectively achieve maximum effect. Additional information is available at getty.edu/foundation.

*About the Terra Foundation for American Art*

The Terra Foundation for American Art, established in 1978 and having offices in Chicago and Paris, supports organizations and individuals locally and globally with the aim of fostering intercultural dialogues and encouraging transformative practices that expand narratives of American art, through the Foundation’s grant program, collection, and initiatives. Learn more at terraamericanart.org.
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· Natalia Ángeles Vieyra

CONTACT: Chris Abanavas
National Gallery of Art
(202) 842-6358
c-abanavas@nga.gov