The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Artwork, which inaugurated a 114,000-sq.-ft enlargement of its campus in Bentonville, Arkansas earlier this month, has made three adjustments to its management workforce, most notably hiring Courtenay Finn as chief curator. Finn, who beforehand served because the chief curator and director of programmes at California’s Orange County Museum of Artwork (now the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Artwork), will begin in her new position spanning Crystal Bridges and its modern and performing arts wing the Momentary on 24 August.
“I’m thrilled to be becoming a member of the unimaginable workforce at Crystal Bridges, particularly at this second of development and enlargement,” Finn mentioned in a press release. “I’ve watched the extraordinary work being carried out for the reason that museum’s founding, and I’m excited to construct on our shared dedication to exhibitions, programmes and initiatives that improve entry, spark curiosity and rework and broaden conventional narratives.”
On the Orange County Museum of Artwork, Finn led the curatorial programme alongside former chief government and director Heidi Zuckerman because the establishment opened its new Morphosis-designed constructing in Costa Mesa in October 2022. Throughout her tenure there, she secured the acquisition of greater than 100 works for the museum’s everlasting assortment (together with items by Joan Brown, Derek Fordjour and Luchita Hurtado) and curated the 2025 version of the museum’s California Biennial, Determined, Scared, However Social (with Christopher Y. Lew and the affiliate curator Lauren Leving) in addition to reveals dedicated to Leonor Fini and Leonora Carrington, Fred Eversley, Alice Neel and others.
Finn was beforehand the chief curator on the Museum of Modern Artwork in Cleveland, a senior curator on the Aspen Artwork Museum and a curator on the New York nonprofit Artwork in Normal.
Finn takes over the chief-curator position in Bentonville from Austen Barron Bailly, who was promoted to deputy director of curatorial affairs in February. Along with Finn’s hiring, Crystal Bridges and the Momentary have appointed Ryan Owen as chief improvement officer (he began on 15 June) and Shayne Hart as chief communications and advertising officer (a job he started in February). Finn, Owens and Hart will all be part of the establishments’ government council.
