(New York, July 10, 2008)—After 15 years as Senior Consultant for modern and contemporary art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nan Rosenthal will retire on July 1, it was announced today by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan.
He further announced that Marla Prather would become Senior Consultant to the department, effective in the fall of 2008.
"Nan is a remarkable curator who has organized landmark exhibitions of some of the greatest artists of our times – Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, and Philip Guston, to mention a few," stated Gary Tinterow, on making the announcement. "She is well-known here for her intelligence, refined taste, and exquisite installations, and we will miss working with her. As Nan retires, Marla Prather – a respected colleague who, coincidentally, worked with Nan at the National Gallery – has agreed to join our department this fall. We look forward to many exciting collaborations with her in the years to come."
Since becoming Senior Consultant in 1993, Nan Rosenthal was the curator of numerous exhibitions held at the Metropolitan, including Jasper Johns: Gray (2008), Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (with Gary Tinterow and Lisa Messinger, 2007-2008), Robert Rauschenberg: Combines (2005-2006), Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration (2004), Philip Guston (2003-2004), Terry Winters: Printed Works (2001), Anselm Kiefer: Works on Paper 1969-1993 (1998-99), The Paintings of Judith Rothschild: An Artist's Search (1998), Jackson Pollock: Early Sketchbooks and Drawings (1997-98), Howard Hodgkin: Paintings 1975-1995 (1995), and Willem de Kooning: Paintings (1994).
Many of the single-artist installations on the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden – of works by Sol LeWitt (2005), Roy Lichtenstein (2003), Claes Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen (2002), Joel Shapiro (2001), David Smith (2000), and Ellsworth Kelly (1998) – were organized by her.
Before joining the Met, she was Curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (1985-1992). She has also been professor, guest lecturer, and guest curator at a number of institutions, including Columbia University, the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, Princeton University, and the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Marla Prather was Curator for American Art at Tate Modern, London, from 2005 to 2007. Based in New York, she was charged with helping Tate develop its collection of American art, working closely with the Director of Collections, Jan Debbaut. From 1999 through 2004, she was Curator of Postwar Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, organizing such exhibitions as Unrepentant Ego: The Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras (2003-4), American Legacy: A Gift to New York (2003), and Lovely Life: The Recent Work of Agnes Martin (2000). Previously at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., beginning in 1986, she was Curator and Head of the Department of 20th Century Art there from 1996 to 1999, where her projects included the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden (1998), Alexander Calder (1998), Claes Oldenburg: An Anthology (1995), and Willem de Kooning: Paintings (1994), an exhibition that traveled to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Gallery. She is a trustee of the Archives of American Art, a frequent lecturer, and the author of many publications on 19th- and 20th-century art.
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