Anne Collins Smith’s appointment is historic. She is the first Black person to head NOMA’s curatorial department

THE NEW ORLEANS MUSEUM OF ART (NOMA) announced a new chief curator on Feb. 11. Anne Collins Smith has taken on the newly created role, leading the museum’s entire curatorial department.

Collins is a local hire with more than two decades of experience. A native of New Orleans, she joined NOMA last fall from Xavier University of Louisiana, where she served for three years as director of the Xavier University of Louisiana Art Gallery on the campus of the New Orleans HBCU.

At NOMA, Smith oversees exhibitions and acquisitions and manages a team of curators, conservators, and collections staff working across disciplines and time periods, from photography, decorative arts, and antiquities to African, Asian, Native American, and pre-Columbian art. Smith’s own curatorial work will focus on modern and contemporary art. She has particular expertise in African American art.

“The museum’s permanent collection of art spanning 5,000 years is at the center of everything we do,” NOMA Director Susan M. Taylor said in a statment. “Anne Collins Smith is an accomplished curator, art historian, and museum leader, and we are thrilled to welcome her to NOMA in this crucial position. Her experience in institutions across the country and her perspective as a native New Orleanian make her an important addition to our staff.”

Smith brings significant experience to NOMA, much of it gained at HBCU museums. Prior to her tenure as director of the Xavier University Art Gallery (2022-24), Smith spent nearly two decades at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, Ga. An alum of Spelman, she was curator of collections at the campus museum from 2003 to 2022. Earlier in her career, Smith was an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College and a Romare Bearden Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum. In terms of her academic background, Smith earned an MA in visual arts administration from New York University and received an undergraduate degree in English and art history from Spelman.

“Anne Collins Smith is an accomplished curator, art historian, and museum leader, and we are thrilled to welcome her to NOMA in this crucial position. Her experience in institutions across the country and her perspective as a native New Orleanian make her an important addition to our staff.”
— NOMA Director Susan M. Taylor

The New Orleans Museum of Art is city’s oldest fine arts institution, dating to 1911. Smith’s appointment is historic. She is the first Black person to head NOMA’s curatorial department and the first Black American to serve in any full-time curatorial role in the museum’s history. (Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba was the first Black curator hired by NOMA. Born and raised in Nigeria, he served as curator of African Art, from 2018–22.) Smith’s appointment also marks a transition at NOMA. The chief curator position was previously titled deputy director for curatorial affairs. Smith succeeds Lisa Rotondo-McCord, who is now deputy director of NOMA.

In her new role, Smith is planning a partial reinstallation of the permanent collection and will serve as institutional curator of forthcoming exhibitions of Hayward L. Oubre Jr. (1916-2006), the first monographic retrospective of the artist and educator active in Alabama and North Carolina, and Willie Birch, the first career retrospective of the New Orleans-based artist.

Smith officially started as chief curator in September 2024. Asked about the nearly six month delay in announcing the appointment, a NOMA spokesperson told Culture Type by email: “Together with Smith, we decided to first introduce her in her role to museum partners, community stakeholders, and colleagues in the field before sharing information to press.” Now that the news is out officially, Smith called the job the “opportunity of a lifetime.”

In a statement, Smith said: “This appointment is the opportunity of a lifetime and a testimony to perseverance and my dedication to curatorial practice. I look forward to advancing NOMA’s mission and shepherding exemplary art experiences with our dynamic team of curators. The art historian Mary Ann Calo speaks of how curators serve as interlocutors between art, artists, and the community. This principle continues to guide me through my career.” CT

IMAGE: Top left, Anne Collins Smith. | Both photos by Taylor Hunter, Courtesy New Orleans Museum of Art

In recent years, exhibitions at the New Orleans Museum of Art have included “John Scott: Blues Poem for the Urban Landscape” (2024-25), “Afropolitan: Contemporary African Arts at NOMA” (2024), “Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined” (2024), “Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club” (2023), “Picture Man: Portraits by Polo Silk” (2022-23), “Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers” (2022-23), and “Roberto Lugo: ‘Stunting’ Garniture Set,” an installation of three commissioned ceramic works

FIND MORE In the wake of the police murders of George Floyd and others, former staff of the New Orleans Museum of Art adopted the hashtag #dismantlenoma and published an open letter dated June 24, 2020, calling out what the group described as “racism and hypocrisy” at the institution. The letter also stated: “Not only is there a recently installed plantation exhibition on display at the museum, but there also exists a plantation-like culture behind its facade.” In July 2020, NOMA committed to being “a welcoming, inclusive, anti-racist institution,” announced an Agenda for Change, and updated related accomplishments through 2022. See reporting from ARTnews, NOLA.com, and Hyperallergic

FIND MORE In 2023, The NOLA Project, an ensemble theatre company, ended its 12-year partnership with the New Orleans Museum of Art. See reporting from Axios

BOOKSHELF
Anne Collins Smith curated “Maren Hassenger: …Dreaming” (2015) at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and contributed to the exhibition catalog. In 2024, the New Orleans Museum of Art published the exhibition catalog “Glass: Sand, Ash, Heat: New Orleans Museum of Art” and “Where Art Meets Nature: The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden,” a survey of NOMA’s sculpture garden. Featured on Culture Type’s Best Black Art Books of 2023 list, “Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers” documents an important exhibition presented at the museum.