Connie H. Choi Appointed Barnes Foundation Vice President for Art and Education & Gund Family Chief Curator
Philadelphia, PA, June 23, 2026—Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President of the Barnes Foundation, today announced the appointment of Connie H. Choi, PhD, to the newly created position of Vice President for Art and Education & Gund Family Chief Curator. With two decades of experience in the museum sector in curatorial, research, and education roles, Choi joins the Barnes following nearly ten years at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she most recently served as Curator. She will begin her post at the Barnes on September 8, 2026.
As Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Choi oversaw the activities of the curatorial department, including, most recently, the opening of the institution’s new building in November 2025. She worked on several of the inaugural exhibitions, including as curator of Tom Lloyd (2025–26), the first museum survey of the artist’s work, and lead curator of From Now: A Collection in Context (2025–26), the largest collection exhibition in the institution’s history; she also edited the inaugural publications.
Choi provided overall strategic vision for the museum’s collections, exhibitions, and publications and collaborated closely with colleagues across the institution and externally to realize an ambitious program that was both scholarly and accessible. She managed all aspects of the permanent, special, and study collections and developed and administered the museum’s programs for loans and rights and reproductions.
In addition to organizing and co-curating several exhibitions—including Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem (2019–21), Their Own Harlems (2017–18), Fictions (2017–18), and Regarding the Figure (2017)—Choi collaborated frequently with the Learning and Engagement department, developing Find Art Here, an initiative that brought reproductions from the museum’s collection to libraries, schools, and service organizations throughout Harlem.
“It is a great pleasure to welcome Connie to the Barnes as she steps into the impactful new role of Vice President for Art and Education & Gund Family Chief Curator,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President of the Barnes Foundation. “In the interest of fostering greater synergies between our curatorial and conservation functions and our research, interpretation, and adult education operations, I have merged these departments under Connie’s leadership. Her impressive curatorial and scholarly achievements, and pioneering work relating to artists, material histories, and cultures of the African diaspora, make her uniquely prepared to lead the work of these important departments. I look forward to working closely with Connie—a deeply collaborative thought partner and leader—to expand the impact of our exhibitions, education and research program, and international curatorial contributions.”
“I am thrilled to join the Barnes in this exciting role,” says Choi. “The Barnes as an educational institution holds a particular resonance for me given my background in arts pedagogy, which I have employed in both museum spaces and higher education classrooms. I am inspired by the Barnes’s progressive vision and excellence in arts and education and look forward to drawing on my spectrum of experience to support the incredible work of my new colleagues across many departments and the institution at large.”
In the new role of Vice President for Art and Education & Gund Family Chief Curator, Choi will shape the Barnes’s curatorial and educational vision in alignment with and reflecting the larger strategic goals of the institution. Reporting directly to Thom Collins, Choi will serve as a key member of the Barnes’s senior leadership team and play a vital role in providing strategic vision and leadership for the planning, priority-setting, integration, and stewardship of a forward-looking and financially sustainable institution. She will organize and publish her own curatorial projects while overseeing the curatorial, collections, conservation, registration, exhibitions, and research, interpretation, adult learning, and academic programs departments.
Prior to joining the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2017, Choi was Assistant Curator of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She has also held editorial, research, and education roles at institutions including the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute (Cambridge, MA).
Choi has received a variety of professional and academic fellowships and awards, including a Center for Curatorial Research Fellowship in 2022, the Henry Allen Moe Prize for the Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem (2019–21) catalogue in 2020, and a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship for Columbia University from 2009 to 2013. She has taught art history courses at Barnard College, Columbia University, and Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Choi has published extensively, editing and contributing to books that include Studio Museum in Harlem: A History (Studio Museum in Harlem, forthcoming 2026), Reminiscence by Elizabeth Colomba (Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins, 2026), and Meaning Matter Memory: Selections from the Studio Museum in Harlem Collection (Phaidon, 2025), among many others. She holds a PhD in art history and archaeology from Columbia University, a Master of Education from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Arts in the history of art from Yale University.
ABOUT THE BARNES FOUNDATION
The Barnes Foundation is a nonprofit cultural and educational institution that shares its unparalleled art collection with the public, organizes special exhibitions, and presents programming that fosters new ways of thinking about human creativity. The Barnes collection is displayed in ensembles that integrate art and objects from across cultures and time periods, overturning traditional hierarchies and revealing universal elements of human expression. Home to one of the world’s finest collections of impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern paintings—including the largest groups of paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne in existence—the Barnes brings together renowned canvases by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Vincent van Gogh, alongside African, Asian, ancient, medieval, and Native American art as well as metalwork, furniture, and decorative art.
The Barnes Foundation was established by Dr. Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to “promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts and horticulture.” A visionary collector and pioneering educator, Dr. Barnes was also a fierce advocate for the civil rights of African Americans, women, and the economically marginalized. Committed to racial equality and social justice, he established a scholarship program to support young Black artists, writers, and musicians who wanted to further their education. Dr. Barnes was deeply interested in African American culture and became actively involved in the Harlem Renaissance, during which he collaborated with philosopher Alain Locke and Charles S. Johnson, the scholar and activist, to promote awareness of the artistic value of African art.
Since moving to Philadelphia in 2012, the Barnes has expanded its commitment to diversity, inclusion, and social justice, teaching visual literacy in groundbreaking ways; investing in original scholarship relating to its collection; and enhancing accessibility throughout every facet of its programs.
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