WEST PALM BEACH, FL.- The Norton Museum of Art today announced the appointment of Ellen Roberts as the Harold and Anne Berkley Smith Curator of American Art. Roberts, who will join the staff in January, comes to the Norton from the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was the Associate Curator of American Art responsible for works created prior to 1900.

“Ellen brings a contagious enthusiasm for American Art and a strong background in Asian art, as well, and we are thrilled to welcome her to the Norton,” said Norton Executive Director Hope Alswang, “She joins a group of talented curators and will add to the growing number of exhibitions organized by the Norton. We look forward to seeing the connections she draws within and across our collections.”

At the Norton, Roberts will be responsible for the Norton’s pre-1945 permanent collection of American paintings, sculpture, and works on paper as well as conceiving and initiating exhibitions, installations, and programs, and coordinating travelling exhibitions.

“The Norton has a superb American Art collection with particular strengths in modern art,” Roberts said. I look forward to organizing engaging and thought-provoking shows, as well as continuing to enhance the Museum’s wonderful American Art holdings through strategic acquisitions.”

Roberts has co-curated numerous exhibitions and installations, including one opening this year at the Art Institute of Chicago titled, Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture and Cuisine. In 2012, she co-curated a show on the relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright, the Prairie School, and the Art Institute’s Japanese print collection, also at AIC. While a research assistant at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, she curated Boston Views and Beyond Boston: American Women Artists 1870–1940. She has been published extensively, contributing articles and essays on the influence of Japanism on the Arts and Crafts Movement and interior design in American homes, as well as on the works of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Edward Hopper. She earned her PhD and MA in Art History from Boston University and her BA in the subject from Yale University.