ATHENS, GA.- After a national search, the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia has hired Jeffrey Richmond-Moll as its curator of American art, effective August 5. Dr. Richmond-Moll brings broad curatorial experience to the museum from such institutions as the Princeton University Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the New-York Historical Society and the Delaware Art Museum, where he organized the exhibition “Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Violet Oakley’s ‘Angel of Victory.’” He defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Delaware in May (“Roots/Routes: Religion and Modern Mobility in American Art, 1900 – 1935”), and is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University.

Most recently, Dr. Richmond-Moll served as curatorial research associate on the exhibition “Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment,” which originated at the Princeton University Art Museum and traveled to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas (where it is currently on view). The exhibition uses more than 120 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, videos and works of decorative art from the colonial period to the present to examine how American artists of different traditions and backgrounds reflected and shaped environmental understanding while contributing to the development of a modern ecological consciousness. Other exhibition projects to which he has contributed include “Inner Sanctum: Memory and Meaning in the Faculty Room at Nassau Hall,” “Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit,” “A Mine of Beauty: Landscapes by William Trost Richards,” “Making It Modern: The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman” and “Audubon’s Aviary.”

Dr. William U. Eiland, director of the museum, said, “The staff and I are excited that Jeff is joining us at the Georgia Museum of Art. His experience and interests match the strengths of our collections, and we look forward to his furthering our investigations into the history of American art and the visual culture of our nation.”

A specialist in 19th- and early-20th-century American art, Dr. Richmond-Moll has published in peer-reviewed journals including Archives of American Art Journal, MAVCOR Journal and Winterthur Portfolio and contributed essays to numerous exhibition catalogues, including on paintings by Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley and Reginald Marsh, all of whom are represented in the collection of the Georgia Museum of Art. His research has been supported by awards and fellowships from the Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, as well as the Graduate Research Essay Prize from the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art.

His focus on cultural exchange has led him to examine the places where American and European art history overlap and influence one another, and the Georgia Museum of Art’s collections will allow him to pursue that interest further. His dissertation on American modernism likewise aligns with the museum’s strengths, while his expertise in art and religion will enable him to engage the museum’s holdings by self-taught artists.