Judith Keller Appointed Senior Curator of Photographs
at J. Paul Getty Museum
By STAN PARCHIN
February 2, 2010
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| Judith Keller. © J. Paul Getty Trust. |
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| Alex Vertikoff. The J. Paul Getty Museum Courtyard at Dusk. 120 transparency. © 2003 J. Paul Getty Trust. |
The
J. Paul Getty Museum announced today the appointment of Judith Keller as its new Senior Curator of Photographs, effective immediately. Acting head of the department since January 2009, she succeeds retired founding Curator Weston Naef.
EducationJudith Keller received her bachelor's degree in art history and master's degree in museum practice and art history at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She also completed course work for her doctorate in art history from the same institution.
ExperiencePrior to arriving at the Getty Museum in 1986, Keller worked at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (1979-81) and the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery (now the Blanton Museum of Art) at the University of Texas at Austin as its Curator of Prints and Drawings.
Judith Keller joined the Getty Museum's staff as Associate Curator in 1986. She was promoted to Curator in 2008. In that capacity, she expanded the museum's holdings to include photographs by artists from East Asia, China, Japan and Korea. More than 900 works were added to the Getty's permanent collection in 2009 when Keller was Acting Senior Curator of Photographs. She's also the author of over 10 publications, among them
Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection (1995) and
Jo Ann Callis: Woman Twirling (2009).
Keller was responsible for more than 20 special exhibitions, including
William Eggleston and the Color Tradition (1999),
Strange Days: Photographs by Garry Winogrand, William Eggleston, and Diane Arbus (2003),
Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection (2006) and
The Goat's Dance: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide (2007). She has seven shows planned for 2010.
David Bomford, Acting Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, said, "After seeing the admirable manner in which Judith Keller has led the department for the past year, it became clear that she would be the ideal person to take it into the future. We look forward to seeing continued great things from Judy in her new official role.”