SAN ANTONIO, TX.- The San Antonio Museum of Art announced the hiring of William Rudolph in a newly created position as the Hugh and Marie Halff Curator of American Art and Mellon Chief Curator. The position is being supported by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and endowed by local San Antonian philanthropist Marie Halff, in honor of her late husband.

Mr. Rudolph will begin his tenure at the San Antonio Museum of Art in December. He is currently the Curator of American Art and Decorative Arts and Director of Exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum. He is co-curator of the recently opened exhibition there, “Thomas Sully: Painted Performance,” a major retrospective of the 19th-century Philadelphia artist Thomas Sully, which, coincidentally, is scheduled to travel to the San Antonio Museum of Art (February 8-May 11, 2014).

“The San Antonio Museum of Art is an ambitious museum,” said Mr. Rudolph. “I’m excited to work with Katie Luber and her team to bring dynamic art and programming to the city’s diverse community, to the south Texas and Hill Country regions and to the 28 million annual visitors who fall in love with this marvelous city’s rich history and culture.”

Mr. Rudolph previously served as Curator of American Art at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, MA, and as the Associate Curator of American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. He received his master’s degree in art history from the University of Virginia and his doctorate in art history from Bryn Mawr College. His dissertation was on Jean-Joseph Vaudechamp, a 19th-century portraitist who commuted between Paris and New Orleans in the 1830s.

Mr. Rudoph was born in Kansas, spent much of his childhood in Blacksburg, Virginia and finished growing up near Lincoln, Nebraska.