DENVER, CO.-The Denver Art Museum (DAM) announced this weekend the appointment of Darrin Alfred to the newly created position of AIGA Assistant Curator of Graphic Design, within the Museum’s department of architecture, design and graphics. In addition to funding this position, AIGA, the professional association for design, recently selected the Denver Art Museum as the new home for its extensive AIGA Design Archives. DAM Director Lewis Sharp and AIGA Executive Director Richard Grefé welcomed Alfred Saturday at the closing celebration of the 2007 AIGA Design Conference in Denver . Alfred will begin work at the Denver Art Museum in November 2007.

“In partnership with AIGA, the Denver Art Museum continues its commitment to contemporary design with the addition of this new curatorial position,” Sharp said. “With the acquisition of the AIGA Design Archives, the Museum’s design collections are among the most extensive in the nation, and we look forward to Darrin’s scholarship and expertise as we continue to strengthen the Museum’s holdings.”

As the AIGA Assistant Curator of Graphic Design at the Denver Art Museum , Alfred will be responsible for both the Museum’s existing graphic design collection and the AIGA Design Archives. This newly acquired collection, which consists of approximately 8,000 objects, is the most comprehensive collection of American graphic design from 1980 to the present in the world. These holdings will be augmented by an annual acquisition of approximately 200-300 objects from AIGA.

As part of its donation to the Denver Art Museum , AIGA will fund the position for three years.

“The Denver Art Museum has long been a pioneering institution for design, and we are so pleased that AIGA’s Design Archives will continue this tradition,” Grefé said. “The contribution of AIGA’s archives and a curatorial position dedicated to these collections will augment the Museum’s design holdings, programming, and scholarship, and draw a deserving focus to the field of design.”

Alfred holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in architectural history from the University of Pittsburgh and a masters’ degree in landscape architecture from the University of Colorado at Denver . He comes to the Denver Art Museum from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), where he held the title of assistant curator, Department of Architecture and Design. Prior to that position, he was a curatorial associate at SFMOMA, as well as a guest curator for the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects and a landscape designer for Suzman Design Associates.

In his seven years with SFMOMA, he organized exhibitions including The Art of Design: Selections from the SFMOMA Collection, 2x4/design series 3, California College of the Arts at 100: Fertile Ground, Fantasy and Function: The Furniture of John Dickinson, Film Posters from Poland: Selections from the SFMOMA Collection, Belles Lettres: The Art of Typography, and Jack Stauffacher: Selections from the Permanent Collection.

In 1990, the Denver Art Museum created what became the department of architecture, design and graphics, addressing issues in a field that has radically changed over the last quarter century. An inclusive collections policy encompasses architecture, decorative design, graphics, industrial design, and “functional” craft within the department. In less than 20 years, the collection has grown to include more than 11,000 objects including the AIGA Design Archives, a donation originally announced in 2003 and brought into the Museum in 2007.