Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces New Senior Staff Appointments

Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced five senior staff appointments that went into effect this month.

Quincy Houghton as Deputy Director for Exhibitions;

Dita Amory as Curator in Charge and Administrator, the Robert Lehman Collection;

Kim Benzel as Curator in Charge, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art;

Jayson Dobney as Curator in Charge, Department of Musical Instruments; and

Janina Poskrobko as Conservator in Charge, Textile Conservation.

"It is an honor to announce these appointments, all of which are extremely well deserved," said Mr. Weiss. "This is a group of dedicated, talented, and experienced individuals who bring an impressive level of expertise to their positions. In addition to being collaborative colleagues who care deeply about this institution, they also exemplify the high standard of excellence that is at the core of the Museum."

Quincy Houghton, now Deputy Director for Exhibitions, joined The Metropolitan Museum of Art last summer as Associate Director for Exhibitions from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where she was responsible for managing the museum's exhibitions program, installations, and collection reinstallations. At The Met, Ms. Houghton leads the extensive and wide-ranging exhibition program that brings exhibitions and loans from around the world to the Museum's three locations—The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer, and The Met Cloisters—and that last year attracted more than 7 million visitors. Ms. Houghton also oversees the substantial collection-based installation program in which works from The Met's holdings are shown in innovative and inspiring displays throughout the Museum's galleries. She holds a B.A. magna cum laude in Fine Arts from Harvard University.

Dita Amory, newly named Curator in Charge and Administrator of the Robert Lehman Collection, has been a curator at The Met for more than 21 years. She began as an Assistant Curator in 1996, and has been Acting Curator in Charge of the Robert Lehman Collection since 2007. Her recent exhibitions include the celebrated Madame Cezanne (2014), Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors (2009), and Neo-Impressionism: The Circle of Paul Signac (2001). Ms. Amory is presently organizing the upcoming exhibition Leonardo to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection (opening October 4, 2017) with her colleague Associate Curator Alison Nogueira. The exhibition will trace the development of European drawing through works by masters such as Dürer, Rembrandt, Tiepolo, Ingres, and Seurat. Ms. Amory holds an M.A. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. 

Kim Benzel, appointed to Curator in Charge for the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, has been at the Museum since 1990, when she was a Summer Graduate Assistant in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. She has extensive teaching and lecture experience, and participated in several archaeological excavations, primarily at sites in Syria, such as Til Barsip/Tell Ahmar and Umm el-Marra. She has co-edited and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues, published several articles, and co-authored a Met resource guide on the ancient Near East for K–12 teachers. Dr. Benzel has also worked on many exhibitions, most notably Assyrian Origins: Discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris (1995); Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C. (2008), and, more recently, Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age (2014). Dr. Benzel holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York.

Jayson Dobney, now Curator in Charge for the Department of Musical Instruments, has been at The Met for 10 years. He was Associate Director at the National Music Museum at the University of South Dakota before joining The Met as Associate Curator and Administrator for Musical Instruments. Mr. Dobney has most recently organized exhibitions such as the popular Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York (2011); Early American Guitars: The Instruments of C. F. Martin (2014); and The Sau-Wing Lam Collection of Rare Italian Stringed Instruments (2013). He is currently supervising the reinstallation of the Museum's André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments in collaboration with J. Kenneth Moore and Bradley Strauchen-Scherer. Mr. Dobney holds a master of music degree from the University of South Dakota, Vermillion. 

Janina Poskrobko, appointed to Conservator in Charge for Textile Conservation, joined the Museum in 2000. She has been responsible for the textile and carpet collection of the Department of Islamic Art for 14 years, supervising major projects such as the conservation and installation of textiles and carpets for the re-opening of the Galleries for Islamic Art in 2011 after an extensive renovation. Her work has been critical to many important exhibitions, including Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797 (2007); Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy (2015); and Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs (2016). She also co-curated the 2013 exhibition Making the Invisible Visible: Conservation and Islamic Art. Educated in conservation in both Europe and the United States, she is currently completing her Ph.D. at the Institute for Study, Research and Conservation of Oriental Art in Toruń, Poland.