Lynn Matheny

BIO

Dr. Matheny currently serves as Deputy Head of Interpretation and Curator of Special Projects at the National Gallery of Art. Most recently, she has served as the museum's coordinating curator for Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art. She has led the interpretation of dozens of modern and contemporary art exhibitions, including Dorothea Lange: Seeing People, Philip Guston Now, Afro-Atlantic Histories, Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings; Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959-1971; Dada; The Art of Romare Bearden; and Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre. Dr. Matheny began her career as an undergraduate summer intern in the prints and drawings department at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and finds her return to the classrooms of the Corcoran especially rewarding.

RESEARCH

Dr. Matheny has a strong interest in the intersection between art and politics. Her doctoral thesis, “Reactionary Modernism and Fascist Aesthetics: National Socialist Visual Culture and the Appropriation of Modernism,” examined the Nazis’ fraught and complicated relationship with modernism. Subsequent projects have considered the ways in which art has shaped and been shaped by the turbulent politics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She also is interested in the history of museums and the politics of display from the Enlightenment to our current moment. Recent classes taught include a seminar on modern art and politics and an introductory level course studying art from 1945 to the present.

RECENT PUBLICATION

https://www.nga.gov/blog/a-perfectly-imperfect-moment.html

EDUCATION

B.A. Art History and Comparative Area Studies, Duke University

M.A. Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

Ph.D. Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Association of Art Museum Curators

College Art Association

Association of Art Museum Interpretation