Cultured Peachy: Director Thomas P. Campbell Announces Curatorial and Conservation Appointments at Metropolitan Museum

Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, today announced three appointments within the Museum's curatorial and conservation departments:
* Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser as Curator in The American Wing;
* Jennifer Perry as Conservator for Japanese paintings in the Department of Asian Art; and
* Xavier F. Salomon as Curator in the Department of European Paintings.
"I am pleased to announce the addition of these three outstanding scholars and specialists to the curatorial and conservation ranks of the Metropolitan," stated Mr. Campbell. "All bring with them superb credentials and experience, and are deeply respected by their colleagues in their respective fields.  They will complement and enhance in myriad ways the work of the Museum's distinguished staff and uphold the level of excellence for which the Metropolitan is renowned.   We look forward to welcoming Betsy, Jennifer, and Xavier, and to working with them in the years ahead."

Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser
A specialist in American paintings with a focus on paintings of the Hudson River School, Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser will join the staff of the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing on September 1.  She has worked for the past 26 years at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, where most recently she held the dual role of Chief Curator (since 1999) and Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture (since 1988).  Ms. Kornhauser also served as Acting Director of the Atheneum in 2000 and as Deputy Director from 1999 to 2004.  She has many exhibitions and publications to her credit, on subjects ranging from 18th-century American portraiture, American landscape painting, and the Hudson River School to American Modernism, and on artists including Ralph Earl, Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Marsden Hartley, and Joseph Cornell, as well as collection catalogues of the Atheneum's American painting collection and the Samuel and Elizabeth Colt arms and art collection.  Most recently, she organized the exhibition American Moderns on Paper: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, which is now on a national tour and is scheduled to open at the Atheneum on September 30.
One of Ms. Kornhauser's first projects will be to work closely with the staff of The American Wing on preparations for the January 2012 opening of the renovated and reinstalled American paintings galleries.
 
Jennifer Perry
Ms. Perry will join the Department of Asian Art on September 13 as Conservator for Japanese paintings, with responsibility for the care and conservation of the Metropolitan Museum's collection of Japanese paintings, prints, and related works of art.  Since 2004 she has been Associate Conservator for Asian Paintings at The Cleveland Museum of Art, where she has handled the conservation treatment, mounting, and preservation of the museum's East Asian paintings collection, including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean works of art.  From 1997 to 2003, she worked as Japanese Painting Conservator at Oka Bokkodo—a studio in Kyoto, Japan, that specializes in the treatment of designated Cultural Properties.  Prior to training in Japan, Ms. Perry received her Master's degree from the Conservation Center of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts.

Xavier F. Salomon
Xavier F. Salomon will become Curator of Southern Baroque Paintings, beginning in January 2011.  He was named to his current position of Arturo and Holly Melosi Chief Curator at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London in 2009, prior to which (from 2006 to 2009), he was Curator at Dulwich Picture Gallery.  He recently co-curated, with Colin Bailey, the exhibitionMasterpieces of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery at The Frick Collection in New York (March 8 - May 30, 2010).  In 2009 he organized two exhibitions:Best of British: The Story of the British Collection at Dulwich Picture Gallery (Dulwich, July 8 - September 27, 2009) and Paolo Veronese: The Petrobelli Altarpiece, which was shown at Dulwich Picture Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas.  He held the Francis Haskell Memorial Scholarship in 2006 and earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.