NEW YORK, NY.- The Whitney Museum of American Art today announced five curatorial staff promotions, led by the appointment of Dana Miller to the newly endowed position of Richard DeMartini Family Curator and Director of the Collection. The other promotions announced were Jane Panetta, Associate Curator; Claire Henry, Assistant Curator; Laura Phipps, Assistant Curator; and Elisabeth Sherman, Assistant Curator. The changes reflect the ongoing transformation of the Museum, including its expanded programming opportunities and the growth and increasing prominence of its permanent collection.

Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney's Alice Pratt Brown Director, said, “The Whitney is deeply grateful to Richard M. DeMartini, the new President of our Board of Trustees, both for his generosity and his vision in paving the way for this exciting new chapter at the Whitney. We are honored to have the DeMartini name associated with this senior curatorial position, and I’m delighted that Dana Miller will inaugurate it.”

Scott Rothkopf, Deputy Director for Programs and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator, commented, “Dana Miller is the ideal choice for the new position of Richard DeMartini Family Curator and Director of the Collection. No one knows the Whitney’s collection better than Dana, and she epitomizes the highest standards of curatorial excellence, rigor, and scholarship. Dana will build on her current role to advance the future development and display of the Museum’s collection, as well as continue to curate exhibitions.” He added, “The Museum is fortunate to have a wealth of emerging curatorial talent. Jane Panetta, Claire Henry, Laura Phipps, and Elisabeth Sherman have already distinguished themselves at the Whitney and beyond. Their new positions ensure fresh perspectives at the table, and I look forward to their contributions to our program.”

Dana Miller, Richard DeMartini Family Curator and Director of the Collection, said, “I am thrilled to be taking on this new position with the wonderfully generous support of the DeMartini Family. As the Whitney puts greater emphasis on its stunning collection with the opening of the new building, it is my great honor to help guide efforts to develop the collection, present more of it in new and exciting ways, and to deepen the scholarship on our holdings.”

Dana Miller
Dana Miller has been Curator, Permanent Collection, at the Whitney since 2009. In addition to serving on the curatorial team that organized America Is Hard to See, the highly acclaimed inaugural exhibition of the Whitney’s new building, she is the editor of the Museum’s newly released handbook of the collection and currently at work on an exhibition devoted to the artist Carmen Herrera, which will open in fall of 2016. Miller works on all aspects of the collection and recent collaborative projects include launching the entirety of the collection online this past January and coordinating with her curatorial colleagues and the acquisition committees on targeted acquisition initiatives. Most recently she curated the 2014 exhibition, Shaping a Collection: Five Decades of Gifts, the final collection presentation in the Breuer building before the move downtown. In 2012 Miller organized the exhibition Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective (which traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and authored its accompanying catalogue.

Other projects include editing the 2011 publication Legacy: The Collection of Emily Fisher Landau and co-curating (with Scott Rothkopf), the 2010 re-installation of the Whitney’s permanent collection entitled Singular Visions. Miller also co-curated the 2009 exhibitions Claes Oldenburg: Early Drawings, Sculptures, and Happenings Films, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen: The Music Room (with Carter Foster and Chrissie Iles), and Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe (with K. Michael Hays, which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago). In 2006 she was among a team of curators who organized Full House: Views of the Whitney’s Collection at 75. In 2002 she assisted with the exhibition An American Legacy: A Gift to New York which comprised major gifts to the Whitney, and she co-authored its catalogue. Miller coordinated the Whitney installations of Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper (2005) and Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor (2004). Prior to that she worked on Whitney exhibitions of the work of Nan Goldin (1996), Keith Haring (1997), Duane Hanson (1998), Weegee (1998), Sol LeWitt (2000), Agnes Martin (2000), Wayne Thiebaud (2001), Lucas Samaras (2003), Jay DeFeo (2003), and contributed to the previous Whitney collection handbook, published in 2001. Miller has also curated several traveling exhibitions drawn from the collection including one devoted to Alex Katz, as well as thematic exhibitions for venues in Italy, Korea, China, and Japan, each with an accompanying publication. She holds a B.A. in history and art history from Duke University and an M.A. in art history from Columbia University.

Jane Panetta
Jane Panetta joined the Whitney's curatorial department in 2010, and most recently served on the curatorial team for America Is Hard to See. At the Whitney, Panetta co-curated Signs & Symbols (2012, with Donna De Salvo); worked closely on Robert Irwin: Scrim Veil—Black Rectangle—Natural Light, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York [1977] (2013); and contributed to the research and organization of Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection (2011). Prior to joining the Whitney, Panetta spent five years in the Museum of Modern Art’s Painting and Sculpture Department, where she worked closely on the exhibitions James Ensor (2009) and Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years (2007). Panetta has lectured and taught widely on modern and contemporary art at institutions including MoMA, Dia:Beacon, Parsons School of Design, and Storm King Art Center, and has been a contributor to such publications as Art in America and Modern Painters. Panetta holds a B.A. in History from Haverford College and an M.A. in Art History from Hunter College.

Claire Henry
Since 2007, Claire Henry has played a key role in the Whitney's catalogue raisonné project for the films of Andy Warhol, initially working with Callie Angell, and currently assisting John Hanhardt, its general editor. In addition to contributing two chapters, additional texts, and an authoritative bibliography, Henry manages research associated with the catalogue. On behalf of the Andy Warhol Film Project, Henry has contributed research to publications on Warhol film by the National Gallery of Art and the British Film Institute, and has lectured on the many aspects of Warhol's filmmaking. Henry previously worked at the Museum of Modern Art in various capacities, including assistant educator of film production and studies and assistant to a senior curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture. Recent areas of research include the early Combines of Robert Rauschenberg, the parody of the 1960s television commercials in the film work of Andy Warhol, and the early experimental films of Nancy Holt. Her master’s thesis at Hunter College is composed of three case studies of Warhol’s filmmaking.

Laura Phipps
Since joining the Whitney in 2009, Laura Phipps has worked on a number of exhibitions, including 2010, the Whitney Biennial; Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection (2011); Singular Visions (2011), Glenn Ligon: AMERICA (2011), Sinister Pop (2012), and Wade Guyton OS (2012). As a senior curatorial assistant, she played an integral role in the organization of Jeff Koons: A Retrospective (2014), curated by Scott Rothkopf. Phipps co-curated, with Nicholas Robbins, the permanent collection exhibition Test Pattern (2013) and recently co-curated, with Elisabeth Sherman, the installation of Michele Abele’s Baby Carriage on Bike or Riot Shield as Carriage (2015). She has contributed to several Whitney publications and works with the Museum’s Painting and Sculpture Acquisition Committee. She has served on the grant selection committee of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, as a visiting critic for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace and Smackmellon Studio Program, and as a guest curator at the Kentler Drawing Center, Brooklyn. Prior to the Whitney, Phipps worked in the curatorial department and director’s office of the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth. She received her M.A., Art History at Hunter College, CUNY and BFA, Studio Art and BS, Psychology from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.

Elisabeth Sherman
Elisabeth Sherman joined the Whitney in 2009. She assisted with the exhibitions Paul Thek: Diver (2010) and the 2012 Whitney Biennial. She was the senior curatorial assistant on the 2014 Whitney Biennial and Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, opening at the Whitney this fall. In 2012, she curated Trisha Baga: Plymouth Rock 2 and recently co-curated, with Laura Phipps, the installation of Michele Abele’s Baby Carriage on Bike or Riot Shield as Carriage (2015). Sherman works with the Photography Acquisition Committee and, since 2011, has served as the curatorial liaison to the Whitney Contemporaries. She has written for numerous Whitney exhibition catalogues as well as contributed to Artforum and Art in America. She has served on the juries for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Artist Residencies and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant and been a visiting critic for the Smackmellon Studio Program and Review Santa Fe. Previously, she was a curatorial assistant at the American Federation of Arts. She holds an M.A. from the Courtauld Institute, London, and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.