HUDSON, NY.- The Olana Partnership announces that Dr. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, currently the Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be retiring from her position and joining The Olana Partnership as Consulting Senior Curator and Chair of The Church 200 Committee effective August 1. Dr. Kornhauser will lead planning efforts for a national celebration in 2026, the 200th anniversary of the artist Frederic Church’s birth. Exhibitions in 2026 are being planned at the Olana State Historic Site, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and several museums across the United States.
“This is a great moment to celebrate Frederic Church and join The Olana Partnership as we are asking new questions of American Art,” said Elizabeth Kornhauser. “I am looking forward to re-examining the extraordinary national and international status of Church and to inspire museums across the country to get involved in the 200th anniversary celebration.” In addition to the 2026 national celebration, 2024 will mark the centennial anniversary of New York State Parks, of which Olana is a flagship site.
Dr. Kornhauser is one of the country’s leading specialists and curators of American art. She has been at The Metropolitan Museum since 2010 and completed work on the American Painting and Sculpture galleries which opened in January 2012. Most recently, she served as co-curator of two major exhibitions at The Met: Jules Tavernier and the Elem Pomo (2021), which traveled to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings (2018), which traveled to the National Gallery, London. Dr. Kornhauser also co-curated: Rediscovering Thomas Hart Benton’s “America Today” Murals (2014); Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River (2015); and John Singer Sargent’s Portraits of Artists and Friends (2015). An expert in the field of American paintings, she has broadened the American Wing’s collection with major acquisitions, while also expanding historical narratives to highlight the works and contributions of women African Americans, and Indigenous peoples. In honor of her notable career at The Met, she will be recognized as Curator Emerita.
“The Olana Partnership is thrilled to have Betsy Kornhauser join us to lead The Church 200 initiative,” said Sean Sawyer, Washburn & Susan Oberwager President of The Olana Partnership. “She brings both a deep knowledge of Church’s work and a broad understanding of American art and its engagement with critical issues in the past and in contemporary society.”
Previously, Dr. Kornhauser served at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, in a variety of roles including Acting Director, Deputy Director, Chief Curator, and Krieble Curator of American Painting and Sculpture from 1985 to 2010. There she published numerous collection and exhibition catalogues and curated special exhibitions ranging from American Moderns on Paper, (Yale University Press, 2010); Marsden Hartley (Yale University Press, 2003), New Worlds from Old: 19th-Century Australian & American Landscapes (National Gallery of Art, Canberra, Australia, 1998); and Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic (Yale University Press, 1991). Her catalogue for the Ralph Earl exhibition won the 1992 Frances Tavern Museum Book Award. She serves on a number of advisory boards and has been awarded several honors, including the Thomas Cole Distinguished Scholars Award in 2018, and the Frederic Church Award for contributions to American art and scholarship in 2021.
About Olana and The Olana Partnership: Olana is the greatest masterwork of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), the preeminent American artist of the mid-19th century and the most important artist’s home, studio, and designed landscape in the United States. Church designed Olana as a holistic environment integrating his advanced ideas about art, architecture, landscape design, and environmental conservation. Olana’s 250-acre artist-designed landscape with five miles of carriage roads and a Persian-inspired house at its summit embraces unrivaled panoramic views of the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains and welcomes more than 170,000 visitors annually. The landscape is open for guided touring, and reservations are highly recommended.
