PURCHASE, NY.- The Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase announced today that Tracy [Schpero] Fitzpatrick, the Museum’s eighth director, will retire from the State University of New York (SUNY) system effective June 30, 2027, after over a decade of leadership as director of the Neuberger, two decades of service to the Neuberger, and thirty-six years in the field.

Under her leadership, the Neuberger produced exhibitions, publications, and educational initiatives that connected students, faculty, artists, and audiences of all ages while strengthening the relationship between academic learning and direct engagement with works in the Museum’s permanent collection and by visiting artists.

Fitzpatrick said, “it has been my great pleasure and privilege to have led the Neuberger Museum of Art since 2014, especially being able to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in 2024. I am so proud of all the work that we have accomplished and am excited to see what comes next for this great institution.”

Fitzpatrick began her tenure at the Neuberger Museum of Art in 2004 as a joint appointment between the Museum and the Art History program at SUNY Purchase, of which the Neuberger is a part as an academic museum. She became chief curator in 2012 after having served as a curator at the Neuberger since 2004. Fitzpatrick is also a tenured associate professor in the Art History program at SUNY Purchase.

As director of the Neuberger, she has led the strategic planning for the organization for over a decade, raised funds including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Terra Foundation for American Art, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Fitzpatrick edited and contributed to the Neuberger’s first permanent collection catalogue, When Modern Was Contemporary: The Roy R. Neuberger Collection. She curated a number of exhibitions for the Neuberger, including the very significant Romare Bearden: Abstraction and American People, and Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s, which she co-curated with Thom Collins. Of the latter, New York Times critic Holland Cotter remarked that the show could “hardly be better,” commenting further that the show was a “gift.”





Complementing this commitment to scholarship has been Fitzpatrick’s dedication to teaching and learning. Among the academic initiatives closely associated with her leadership as director is the Museum’s Open Classroom model, which expanded opportunities for faculty and students to engage directly with original works of art, artists, and curatorial practice while further integrating the Museum into the educational experience at SUNY Purchase. The program reinforced the Museum’s role as a site of inquiry, experimentation, and learning.

“The Neuberger’s extraordinary collections, dedicated staff, and longstanding commitment to scholarship, teaching, and public engagement provide a strong foundation for future growth and innovation,” said Fitzpatrick. “While I am stepping away from my formal responsibilities within SUNY, my commitment to the arts, scholarship, education, and museums remains unchanged. I am so grateful to the colleagues, students, artists, supporters, and friends who have enriched this journey and helped make it so rewarding. I look forward to remaining an advocate for the transformative power of art.”

Prior to joining the Neuberger, Fitzpatrick was an assistant curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, which she joined in 1990, just three years after that organization opened to the public. Over the course of her long career, Fitzpatrick has overseen more than forty exhibitions and curated another dozen, has lectured widely and participated in panel discussions on a wide range of topics. Alongside her exhibition catalogues, she is known as an authority on the art of the New York City subway having published Art and the Subway: New York Underground in 2009.

Fitzpatrick has served on the New York State Board of Regents Advisory Council on Museums, the Boards of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries and the SUNY Visual Arts Association Council of Museums and Galleries. She has also served as a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors and the College Art Association where she sat on both the Museum Committee and the Committee on Women in the Arts.