PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Barnes Foundation today announced the appointment of Cindy Kang as assistant curator—the first assistant curator in the Foundation’s history. With more than six years of curatorial experience at major arts institutions—including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art—Kang will be joining the Barnes Foundation from the Bard Graduate Center in New York. In her role at the Barnes, Kang will work directly with Sylvie Patry, deputy director for collections & exhibitions and Gund Family Chief Curator, to expand the Foundation’s growing exhibitions program, collections research and interpretative activities, and curatorial and educational technology initiatives. She will begin her post on February 27.

“It is my pleasure to welcome Cindy, an accomplished curator and scholar whose deep knowledge of 19th-century French painting and decorative arts makes her a wonderful fit for the Barnes,” says Thom Collins, executive director and president. “As we build our curatorial team, led by Sylvie Patry, and expand our exhibitions program and collections research initiatives, Cindy’s appointment is a key step in our evolution as an institution.”

As associate curator at the Bard Graduate Center, Kang helped organize the current exhibition Charles Percier: Architecture and Design in an Age of Revolutions in collaboration with the Château de Fontainebleau in France. At the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kang conducted research in Paris for the museum’s forthcoming collections catalogue, French Paintings: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. During her time as an MMA/IFA Curatorial Studies Resident at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she curated the exhibition The Persistence of Antiquity: French Drawings from the Lehman Collection (2011–2012). As a research assistant at the Frick, she researched 19th-century works for the exhibition Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection (2009–2010). In 2006, she acted as assistant curator for the exhibition Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor at the Bard Graduate Center.

Kang has lectured and written extensively on Vuillard and additionally on Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, and Gauguin, and she has been published in exhibition catalogues from the Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has taught art history at Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University, New York; and at the College of Arts and Sciences, New York University.

“It will be a great privilege to work at the Barnes—a place that has long captivated me with its world-class collections arranged in unique ensembles,” says Kang. “I’m thrilled by the opportunity to work with the curatorial department and the Barnes staff.”

Kang earned her B.A. in art history and French from Wellesley College and her M.A. and Ph.D.—with a specialization in 19th-century French art—from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She has received several fellowships, including a Predoctoral Fellowship from the Getty Research Institute (2012–2013); the Theodore Rousseau Fellowship from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2011–2012); and the Harriet A. Shaw Fellowship from Wellesley College (2011–2012).