HOUSTON, TX.- Gary Tinterow, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has announced the appointment of Aimée E. Froom as curator of Islamic art. She joins Mr. Tinterow and Mahrukh Tarapor, the Museum’s senior advisor for international initiatives, in expanding the Arts of the Islamic World program at the MFAH.

“After a lengthy international search, I am delighted that Aimée Froom has joined our staff,” Mr. Tinterow said in announcing the appointment. “Her credentials, curatorial experience, and scholarly accomplishments will provide an excellent platform from which she can grow our collection and deepen our programming based on the extraordinary loans from The al-Sabah Collection, in collaboration with Kuwaiti cultural organization Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah.”

“I am tremendously excited to be at the MFAH, and to be a part of the vibrant culture of Houston, working with my distinguished colleagues at the Museum and in the Houston community,” said Dr. Froom, who begins her appointment in Houston this week. “I look forward to expanding our collection and programming. It is an honor to present the outstanding loans from The al-Sabah Collection, one of the most comprehensive collections of Islamic art in the world.”

Most recently an independent scholar based in Paris, Dr. Froom has published and lectured widely on the topic of Islamic art, in particular decorative arts of the Islamic world. She has acted as a consultant to leading museums, including the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; the British Museum, London; and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris.

In addition to scholarly articles, she is the author of Persian Ceramics from the Collections of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (2008) and wrote the catalogue entries for Spirit and Life: Masterpieces of Islamic Art from the Aga Khan Museum Collection (2007). She has contributed to major publications including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition catalogue Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts (2011); God Is Beautiful and Loves Beauty: The Object in Islamic Art and Culture (2013); and History of Design: Decorative Arts and Material Culture, 1400–2000 (2013). She is currently preparing a book project on the Ottoman Sultan Murad III album for Koç University Press.

As the Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum from 2001 to 2005, Dr. Froom directed the first comprehensive survey of the museum’s collection of 150 Islamic carpets and spearheaded the exhibition, research, care, and growth of the Brooklyn Museum’s encyclopedic collection of Islamic art. Prior to that appointment, she served as a fellow in the Islamic art department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Dr. Froom also brings many years of teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels at institutions including Brown University, Bard Graduate Center, the Trinity College program in Paris, and The American University of Paris. In Houston, she has an adjunct appointment at Rice University. Dr. Froom earned her bachelor of arts degree in art history and French literature from Brown University; her master of arts in art history from the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and her PhD in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, with a thesis titled A Muraqqa’ for the Ottoman Sultan Murad III. She is a member of the College Art Association, Historians of Islamic Art Association, International Center for Medieval Art, and Medieval Academy of America.