ATLANTA, GA.- Michael E. Shapiro, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. Director of the High Museum of Art, recently announced the appointment of Dr. Stephanie Heydt as the new Margaret and Terry Stent Curator of American Art. Heydt, the former Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo, Florida, joined the High Museum of Art on January 16, 2009.

“I am delighted to welcome Stephanie as the newest member of the High’s curatorial team,” said David Brenneman, Chief Curator and Director of Collections and Exhibitions. “She will bring a fresh perspective and new energy to the Museum’s program in American art.”

Heydt served as Curator of Collections and Exhibition at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art since January 2008. Her exhibitions of both historical and modern-day American art include “Christopher Still: Coming Home” (2008), “Victoria Block: Narrations” (2008) and “A Mysterious Clarity: Ray Burggraf, Mark Messersmith and Lilian Garcia Roig” (2008). Prior to her work at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art, she curated “The Visionary Decade: New Voices in Art in 1940s Boston” (2002), “On Process: The American Print” (2001), “First Exposure: The Sketchbooks and Photographs of Theodore Robinson” (2000), “New Faces, New Places: Recent Additions to the Terra Foundation for the Arts” (2000), “The Form and Figure” (2000), “First Exposure: The Sketchbooks and Photographs of Theodore Robinson” (2000) and “The Aesthetic Movement in American Art” (1999).

In 2005 Heydt organized the Boston University Graduate Student Art History Symposium “Visualizing the Invisible.” As a Jacob Rosenberg Research Fellow in the department of American Art at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum, she has given gallery talks on topics such as “The History Paintings of John Singleton Copley” and “American Art at Harvard: Harvard’s Collection.” Heydt has contributed to multiple exhibition catalogues including the forthcoming Christopher Still: Coming Home, and was a contributing author for volumes one and two of the Catalogue to the Collection of American Art at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University as well as for the collection catalogue of the Terra Foundation for the Arts, An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection. She has received numerous fellowships including a research grant with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Library Company of Philadelphia Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship as well as a predoctoral fellow with the Smithsonian American Art Museum Patricia and Philip Frost in 2005.

As the new Margaret and Terry Stent Curator of American Art, Heydt will be responsible for the High’s American art collection, which includes significant works by renowned 19th- and 20th-century American artists such as William Merritt Chase, Henry Ossawa Tanner, John Twachtman and Childe Hassam. It includes landscapes by Hudson River School artists, figure paintings by Henry Inman and John Singer Sargent, and stilllife paintings by John Frederick Peto, William Michael Harnett and William Mason Brown. Recent acquisitions have focused on American painting and sculpture of the interwar years, 1918 to 1945, by artists such as Joseph Stella, Ben Shahn, Georgia O’Keeffe and Theodore Roszack, bringing the full American collection to nearly 900 objects.

“I am honored to be joining such a respected institution as the High Museum of Art and I am excited by the range of opportunities I will have to exhibit American art in Atlanta and beyond. In my stewardship of this firstrate collection I plan to continue the tradition of excellence in scholarship and research established by my colleagues and predecessors at the High,” said Hedyt. “I look forward to working closely with our valued supporters to continue to foster strong community connections and to extend our reach and reputation to American art lovers across the country.”

Heydt received her doctorate of philosophy and art history from Boston University in 2008. She also holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. Prior to her position at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art, she served as the Jakob Rosenberg Fellow in American art at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, from 2002 through 2005. Heydt also served as an assistant curator at the Terra Museum of American Art (now the Terra Foundation) in Chicago and has widely lectured and published on 19th- and 20th-century American art and culture.