PROVIDENCE, RI.- The RISD Museum announces new leadership in its Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs (PDP). Michael Hartman has been named the Houghton P. Metcalf Jr. Curator and Head of the Department, effective October 1, 2025; Associate Curator Conor Moynihan, who was promoted in 2024, continues his role in shaping PDP’s future; and Tori Champion has been appointed the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow.

Hartman joins the RISD Museum from the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, where he served as Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art. At the Hood, he oversaw the Arts of the Americas collections from 1500 to the present and curated projects such as Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art; Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water; Historical Imaginary; and Photographs from Hollywood's Golden Era: The John Kobal Foundation Collection. He served as site curator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s traveling exhibition ¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now, and significantly expanded the Hood’s holdings of works on paper, with a focus on artists historically underrepresented in museum collections.

Previously, Hartman worked in the Manton Study Center for Works on Paper at the Clark Art Institute, where he curated the acclaimed exhibition Extreme Nature! His recent book, Reenvisioning American Art: Transforming Museum Practice (co-edited with Jami C. Powell, University of Washington Press), highlights innovative curatorial strategies that elevate Indigenous and Black artists across collections and exhibitions.

“Michael’s expertise, collaborative approach, and commitment to rethinking art historical narratives make him an exceptional addition to the museum,” said Tsugumi Maki, Director of the RISD Museum. “His vision aligns with our mission to unlock the creative process, empower audiences to participate in the meaning and making of art and design, and envision a world where artistic innovation thrives. We look forward to how he will expand and enliven Prints, Drawings, and Photographs for our campus and community.”

Conor Moynihan

Associate Curator Conor Moynihan was promoted in recognition of his leadership within PDP. He served as Interim Head following the retirement of Jan Howard in 2023 and provided leadership during a pivotal transition. His expertise includes modern and contemporary works on paper, with an emphasis on accessibility, queer representation, and expanding the range of artists collected and exhibited.

Exhibitions developed under his leadership include Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Re-making Disability (2022), The Performative Self-Portrait (2023), Listen! (co-curated with Christina Alderman and the RISD Art Circle, 2024), This is a Thing: Recent Gifts to Prints, Drawings, and Photographs (2025), and a forthcoming survey of former RISD faculty member Dawn Clements. Acquisitions Moynihan facilitated include works by Judith Scott, Christine Sun Kim, Mari Katayama, Riva Lehrer, Rina Banerjee, Sarah Biffin, selections from the Rossner Collection of modernist works, and a significant group of Chinese contemporary photographs from the collection of Larry Warsh.

Since joining the RISD Museum as Mellon Curatorial Fellow in 2019, Moynihan has advanced through the curatorial ranks, becoming Associate Curator in 2024. He has mentored fellows, students, and artists, and recruited Mellon Fellows including Tori Champion. He continues to shape the museum community through leadership with the LGBTQIA2S+ Working Group.

“Conor continues to make impactful contributions to the department, from imaginative exhibitions that open new conversations to acquisitions that expand the voices represented in our collection, ” said Maki. “We are grateful for his leadership and excited for the ways he will continue to shape the department as Associate Curator.”

Tori Champion

Champion is a scholar of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French art and design, currently completing her doctoral dissertation at the University of St Andrews. Her research examines women in art as artists and subjects, questions of gender, and artists’ engagement of natural history, with multiple published and forthcoming works.

She comes to the RISD Museum following her tenure as Predoctoral Fellow at the Morgan Library & Museum’s Drawing Institute, where she co-organized a pop-up exhibition and graduate seminar on natural history illustration. Previously, she served as the Blakemore Intern for Japanese and Korean Art at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, co-curating the 2021 exhibition Folding into Shape: Japanese Design and Crafts with Dr. Xiaojin Wu.

The Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellowship is a three-year position designed for an outstanding emerging scholar pursuing a curatorial career. Fully integrated into PDP, the Mellon Fellow supervises the active study room, serves as department liaison to faculty teaching from the collections at RISD and Brown University, and undertakes original research culminating in an exhibition in the third year.