COLUMBUS, GA.- After a national search, The Columbus Museum welcomes new leadership in its curatorial department. Jonathan Frederick Walz will serve as the Museum’s Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of American Art beginning August 5.

Walz, an expert on American modernism, relocated to the region from Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was the Curator of American Art at the Sheldon Museum at the University of Nebraska. Previous positions include Curator and Interim Director of the art museum at Rollins College, in Winter Park, FL, and Exhibition Coordinator in the Exhibitions department of the National Gallery in Washington, DC. He received a B.A. magna cum laude in studio art and French language and literature from Asbury College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Maryland, College Park.

As the Director of Curatorial Affairs, Walz will plan and direct the care, interpretation, and growth of the Museum’s collections of art and history. Walz expressed excitement about opportunities to strengthen the Museum’s collection.

“[I look forward to] working with Marianne and the rest of the staff and the Board to consolidate and advance the Museum’s leadership position in the region; to develop the collection, including continuing to acquire works by artists that will provide a fuller account of the histories of American art; and to maintain and strengthen the Museum’s relationship with Columbus State University and other regional institutions of higher learning,” said Walz.

As Curator of American Art, Walz is also responsible for researching, planning, and organizing art exhibitions, researching objects in the collection, and for developing publications related to the collections and exhibitions. Walz has curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions, including Embodied: Black Identities in American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery (David C. Driskell Center); Florida’s “Useable Past”: The Sunshine State and the Index of American Design (Cornell Fine Arts Museum); Land of Enchantment: New Mexico as Cultural Crossroads (Sheldon Museum of Art); The Unfolding Center: Susan York and Arthur Sze (Sheldon Museum of Art; supported by Lannan Foundation); and This Is a Portrait If I Say So: Identity in American Art, 1912 to Today (Bowdoin College Museum of Art; supported by the The Henry Luce Foundation). This Is a Portrait If I Say So: Identity in American Art, 1912 to Today was recently reviewed in The Wall Street Journal.