PORTLAND, ME.- Karen Sherry has been named Curator of American Art at the Portland Museum of Art. Sherry will play a national role in promoting research and scholarship on American art, Winslow Homer, and the significance of Maine in American art and cultural history. Sherry will join the Museum staff on June 26.

“Karen brings to Portland great energy and scholarship as well as extensive experience gained at the great Brooklyn Museum,” said Museum Director Mark H.C. Bessire. “She will provide the path to reinstall the collection, engage audiences through innovative exhibitions, and be part of a curatorial team that seeks to redefine the role of the 21st-century museum. We are also thrilled that her background in American art and Winslow Homer will energize our commitment to the role Maine plays in the national art conversation.”

Since 2003, Karen Sherry has worked at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, most recently as Associate Curator of American Art. Prior to that position, she served as Assistant Curator of American Art and Project Coordinator for the Brooklyn’s Luce Visible Storage and Study Center. She has contributed to numerous exhibitions, catalogues, and other publications including: Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum (2013); American Moderns: From O’Keeffe to Rockwell, 1910-1960 (2012); Japonisme in American Graphic Arts, 1880-1920 (2008); “Under the Open Sky”: Landscape Sketches by Nineteenth-Century American Artists (2007); Picturing Place: Francis Guy’s Brooklyn, 1820 (2006); and The Gist of Drawing: Works of Art on Paper by John Sloan (1997). She also worked as a research assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NewYork and the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and as an adjunct professor at various colleges. In addition to her professional positions, Sherry has been the recipient of fellowships from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Winterthur Museum. She earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in Art History from the University of Delaware and a B.A. in Art History from Boston University.

Sherry joins the Museum’s curatorial staff, which includes: Susan Danly, Senior Curator; Margaret Burgess, The Susan Donnell and Harry W. Konkel Associate Curator of European Art; Jessica May, Curator of Contemporary and Modern Art; Ariel Hagan, Curatorial Coordinator; and Lindsay Garcia, Curatorial Assistant.