BIRMINGHAM, ALA.- The Birmingham Museum of Art announced that Graham C. Boettcher, Ph.D., who has served concurrently as Chief Curator and The William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art, has been appointed Deputy Director. Anne Forschler-Tarrasch, Ph.D., Senior Curator and The Marguerite Jones Harbert and John M. Harbert III Curator of Decorative Arts, was selected to assume the role of Chief Curator. Both Boettcher and Forschler-Tarrasch will maintain their respective curatorial positions and duties.

“I am thrilled by these new changes to our senior leadership,” says Gail Andrews, R. Hugh Daniel Director of the Birmingham Museum of Art. “The Museum is fortunate to have dedicated collectors and patrons of American art who helped build this area from our founding, however it was not until the establishment of the Curator of American Art position that this area received the scholarship and focus it deserved. Graham has meticulously enhanced a great collection, and he has also created a community, a legion of true followers, around his collection area, which can be attributed to his uncanny ability to make art appreciation accessible. Graham’s subsequent leadership of the curatorial department over the last two years, made him a natural fit for this position and we all look forward to the ingenuity and vitality that he will bring to the Museum through his new role.”

Andrews continued, “Anne has made significant contributions to our collection during her 16 years at the Museum. Under her careful direction, the Birmingham Museum of Art now holds the largest collection of Wedgwood in North America. In 2009, she published a catalog of the complete Lamprecht collection, titled European Cast Iron, in both the German and English languages, and she’s proven her leadership as President of the American Ceramic Circle. Anne’s collaborative spirit and her commitment to only the highest standards of curatorial excellence will serve her well as she guides our talented team of curators.”

In his new role, Boettcher will assist the Director with operational oversight and will assume the management of the Education Department, the Department of Communications, the Curatorial Department, the Department of Photography and Visual Resources, the Conservation Department, and the Registration Department. For the foreseeable future, Boettcher will continue to serve as The William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art.

Boettcher joined the staff of the Birmingham Museum in Art in 2006, as the Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Fellow in American Art. Upon completion of his fellowship in 2008, Boettcher was hired in the newly created position of Curator of American Art, which was endowed that same year. Boettcher received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, and an M.A. from the University of Washington in his home state. Boettcher was previously a curatorial fellow at the Yale University Art Gallery, and has held research fellowships at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Terra Foundation Summer Residency in Giverny, France.

Among the many diverse exhibitions Boettcher has curated are Pražské noci / Prague Nights: Czech Modern Art from the Hascoe Collection (2007), Sea Fever: American Art and the Aquatic Imagination (2007), A Masterpiece in Our Midst: Robert S. Duncanson’s A Dream of Italy (2010), A Stitch in Time: Southern Quilts in the African-American Tradition (2011), and The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection (2012), for which he edited and contributed to a major publication by the same name. He has also contributed to the exhibition catalogues American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820-1880 (Tate Britain, 2002); Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds (Yale Center for British Art, 2007); Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery (Yale University Art Gallery, 2008). In 2015, he co-curated (with Kelli Morgan) Black Like Who: Exploring Race and Representation. He is currently working on an exhibition exploring the Viking Revival in American art. He has been a trustee of the Association of Art Museum Curators since 2010, and currently serves as its Vice President of Finance.

Forschler-Tarrasch, Ph.D. joined the BMA in 1999 as the Marguerite Jones Harbert and John M. Harbert III Curator of Decorative Arts. She has focused her education and training on European decorative arts of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, developing a particular interest in ceramics and decorative cast iron. In 2009, she furthered her studies through the Attingham Summer School in England, where she was named the American Friends of Attingham and Lillian Hirschmann Scholar. In 2013, Forschler-Tarrasch was made Senior Curator. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles; her Master of Arts degree from the University of California, Riverside; and her Ph.D. from the Technische Universität in Berlin, Germany.

Forschler-Tarrasch currently oversees the care, display, and interpretation of a 16,000-object collection, including the Dwight and Lucille Beeson and Buten Wedgwood Collections. She has curated a number of exhibitions for the Museum and has reinstalled several galleries. Anne has contributed to a series of Museum publications and scholarly journals, and in 2009 published an extensive catalogue of the Museum’s collection of European cast iron entitled, European Cast Iron in the Birmingham Museum of Art: The Gustav Lamprecht and Maurice Garbáty Collections. Anne is active in a number of national organizations and currently serves on the boards of the Wedgwood International Seminar, where she is Recording Secretary, and the American Ceramic Circle, where she is President. She is editor of the Proceedings of the Wedgwood International Seminar and a contributor to the journal Ars Ceramica.