WELLESLEY, MASS.- Eve Straussman-Pflanzer has been named the Assistant Director of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Curator of Collections at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

“Eve brings to the Davis an expertise in Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting, sculpture and works on paper, along with a broader knowledge of European and American art up to the nineteenth century,” said Lisa Fischman, Ruth Gordon Shapiro ’37 Director of the Davis. “Her specialization in women artists and patrons and gender issues will be of particular interest to the Wellesley community. I am very enthusiastic about her abilities to support and strengthen the museum both strategically and substantively.”

In her new position, Straussman-Pflanzer will work with Fischman to oversee all curatorial matters at the museum, and to define the vision and direction for the collections, curate exhibitions, edit publications and create programs that draw on and/or expand the missions of the institution. She will supervise the curatorial team, coordinating closely with other Davis departments as well as with faculty, students, and staff on the Wellesley College campus.

Most recently Straussman-Pflanzer was the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Associate Curator of European Painting and Sculpture before 1750 at The Art Institute of Chicago, where she curated the upcoming Fall 2013 exhibition Violence and Virtue: Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Judith Slaying Holofernes,” which entailed bringing the painting from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to Chicago; and played an integral role in the important acquisition of Bolognese artist Ludovico Carracci’s Vision of St Francis. Before that she was a research assistant at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she gained a great deal of experience that will be of immense value at the Davis.

Straussman-Pflanzer received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, in 2010, advised by Linda Nochlin and Keith Christiansen. Her thesis examined the art patronage of Medici Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere (1622-1694). A revised chapter of that work, focusing on the first Medici woman court artist Camilla Guerrieri Nati will be published in a forthcoming volume dedicated to new archival discoveries on early modern Italian women artists.

Her introduction to museum work was as a docent at the Smith College Museum of Art, where she received her undergraduate degree. She began her career as an intern at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the summer of 1998, where she continued on as a research assistant until 2009. She was instrumental in coordinating the Met’s 2008 exhibition Art and Love in Renaissance Italy.

In additional to her curatorial work, Straussman-Pflanzer has taught courses on seventeenth-and eighteenth-century European art at The City College of New York (CCNY), the School of the Art Institute, and for the University of Chicago. She remains active in the field of art history by writing essays, book and exhibition reviews, and by presenting papers or chairing panels at scholarly conferences, including the College Art Association (CAA) and the Renaissance Society of America. (RSA).