OMAHA, NEB.- Joslyn Art Museum announces the appointment of Elise Armani as the Museum’s new assistant curator of twentieth-century art. With a primary focus on American art from 1945 to 2000, she will develop and steward the collection, while creating a dynamic program for twentieth- century art, encompassing original exhibitions, research, publications, and public engagement. Together with The Joslyn’s Phil Willson Curator of Contemporary Art, Armani will also direct the care and installation of the Phillip G. Schrager Collection. Armani begins work at The Joslyn on August 18.

Armani is a doctoral candidate in art history and criticism at Stony Brook University (SBU; Stony Brook, NY). Her dissertation charts a network of immigrant artists in New York City between 1976 and 1989 who engaged and intervened in the post industrial urban landscape. While at Stony Brook, she co-curated Revisiting 5+1, presented in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which examined the University’s historic 1969 exhibition of Black artists working in abstraction, curated by Frank Bowling. Armani has curated or contributed to exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Walker Art Center, the Weisman Art Museum, and Tank Shanghai. Her writing has appeared in publications for the Art Students League of New York, Japan Society, and Madre Museum, as well as in The Brooklyn Rail and caa.reviews. Most recently, she co-authored a book on art, culture, and the 1976 American Revolution Bicentennial with Katy Siegel, forthcoming with Yale University Press in 2026. Armani’s research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She holds a BA and BFA from the University of Minnesota, as well as an MA in art history from SBU.

Armani notes, “I welcome the opportunity to interpret and shape an incredible collection of twentieth- century art, from the Museum’s historic holdings in American Modernism to the recently gifted, exceptional Schrager collection of postwar art. I am delighted to be here in Omaha and eager to contribute to The Joslyn, an energized and revered institution that prizes collaborative work, community engagement, and curatorial excellence.”

Joslyn chief curator and director of collections, Taylor J. Acosta, PhD, said, “Elise Armani is an accomplished scholar and thoughtful curator who is dedicated to creating opportunities for broader audiences to connect with and find value in art. Armani joins an expanded curatorial team at The Joslyn, which includes positions devoted to European art, historical American art, Native American Art, twentieth- century art, and contemporary art. Her contributions to the expanded Museum will be considerable as The Joslyn’s institutional renewal continues to unfold.”