NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art has appointed Dave Kehr as Adjunct Curator in the Department of Film, Director Glenn D. Lowry announced today. One of the preeminent voices on early American and classic Hollywood cinema, Kehr is a longtime film journalist, who began his career as a film critic in Chicago and has been a film columnist for The New York Times for the last 14 years. At MoMA, he will facilitate new scholarship and exhibitions related to the unique strengths of MoMA’s film collection, and will focus on making the collection more accessible to audiences outside New York by developing the Museum’s circulating film strategies in the digital realm. In this capacity, he will work closely with Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, beginning December 1.
“Dave Kehr has a hard-earned and dedicated international following as a champion of the under-recognized and long-forgotten in cinema,” said Mr. Roy. “His writing has helped uncover numerous lost gems, provided support for their preservation, and inspired countless cinephiles and filmmakers alike. We are thrilled to have him dive into our collection and add his voice to the celebration of the art of the motion picture.”
Kehr began his career as a film critic in Chicago, beginning with the Chicago Reader in 1974, and subsequently writing film criticism for Chicago Magazine and the Chicago Tribune, before moving to the New York Daily News in 1993. In 1999, he joined The New York Times, taking over the long-running “At the Movies” column. In 2003, he was appointed the paper’s home video critic, and turned his weekly column into an opportunity to examine a wide range of classic and contemporary, domestic and foreign films.
His work has also appeared in a wide range of publications, from Les Cahiers du cinéma to Entertainment Weekly, and he has served as a contributing editor to Film Comment since 1985. He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics and the Library of Congress’s National Film Preservation Board, and is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres.
Among his publications are Italian Film Posters (The Museum of Modern Art, 2003), Art of the Modern Movie Poster: International Style and Design (Chronicle Books, 2008), and When Movies Mattered: Reviews from a Transformative Decade (University of Chicago Press, 2011). He has also written two films: Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows, (American Masters, PBS, 2001), and Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That (Turner Classic Movies, 2005).
