NEW YORK, NY.- Bard Graduate Center announced today the appointment of Dr. Julia Siemon as Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator. A specialist in Italian Renaissance art, Siemon comes to BGC from the J. Paul Getty Museum. In her new role, Siemon will oversee BGC’s acclaimed exhibition program and contribute to all aspects of intellectual life at the graduate research institute, furthering its commitment to introducing new ways of thinking about the decorative arts, design history, and material culture. She will begin work at BGC on July 1, 2024.

“Julia Siemon’s impressive curatorial experience, research, and writing on a broad range of subjects across the history of art, design, and material culture uniquely position her to create dynamic exhibitions that inform and advance an appreciation of the decorative arts," said Susan Weber, Director and Founder of Bard Graduate Center. “I look forward to working with her to build on BGC’s tradition of carefully crafted, well-researched presentations that convey ideas and issues previously overlooked and unexplored.”

At BGC, Siemon will be responsible for creating and providing guidance for exhibitions, serving as a mentor for BGC’s curators, and teaching graduate courses about curatorial thinking and other topics to M.A. and Ph.D. students. Her other responsibilities include managing gallery staff and overseeing administration of the department.

“As a long-time admirer of the institution’s innovative and ambitious exhibitions, publications, and programs, I am delighted to be joining Bard Graduate Center,” said Julia Siemon. “Like BGC’s outstanding scholars and curators, I am dedicated to exploring the cultural history of the material world and the encyclopedic study of tangible ‘things.’ I look forward to collaborating with BGC’s talented faculty, staff, and students on projects that advance the institution’s groundbreaking research and scholarship.”

Prior to serving as the Assistant Curator of Paintings at the Getty Museum, Siemon was Assistant Curator for Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and Assistant Research Curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her projects have encompassed topics as diverse as Italian and Northern Renaissance decorative arts, Japanese textiles, printmaking, the legacy of classical ornament, eighteenth-century architectural pedagogy, British painting, nineteenth-century collecting, and the intersection of Italian portraiture, politics, and poetry.

Siemon’s exhibitions have included The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery, a focused look at the monumental silver-gilt standing cups known as the “Aldobrandini Tazze,” on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017 and later at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, England. At Cooper Hewitt, she organized Nature by Design: Katagami (2019) and Mr. Pergolesi’s Curious Things: Ornament in 18th-Century Britain (2022-23). Additionally, supported by a Getty Paper Project grant (2021), she is spearheading a major research and conservation project on Cooper Hewitt’s sketchbook drawings by the Flemish printmaker Johannes Stradanus, work which will conclude in early 2025. Siemon is also curator, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, of an exhibition exploring the so-called “candlelight” paintings of the British artist Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), scheduled to open in late 2026.

In addition to her own exhibition publications, Siemon’s writing has appeared in numerous catalogues and edited volumes, including books published by the British Museum Press, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hill Art Foundation, and the National Museum, Krakow. Siemon regularly lectures on her work, having spoken at several institutions including the Frick Collection, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Goldsmiths’ Company, the Kunsthistorisches Institut, Waddesdon Manor, the Getty, Master Drawings New York, the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the College Art Association, and the Renaissance Society of America. She has taught several courses in art history at Columbia University and served as a frequent guest lecturer for the Parsons School of Design/Cooper Hewitt Master’s program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies. She earned her B.A. at Washington University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in art history at Columbia University.