Joanna M. Gohmann

Bio

Joanna M. Gohmann is an art historian and provenance specialist with more than 14 years of museum experience. She believes that researching and sharing object and collection histories is central to maintaining transparent, equitable and relevant museums. Presently, Gohmann leads the provenance program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA). In addition to conducting provenance research across collection areas, she coordinates NMAA’s ongoing collaboration with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation’s Museum of Asian Art and Central Archives, co-organizing opportunities for research exchange, most notably the webinar series Hidden Networks: The Trade of Asian Art (2020–22). Gohmann works to integrate provenance stories into NMAA’s web presence and gallery installations; her work can be seen in the exhibition Freer’s Global Network: Artists, Collectors, Dealers, which explores the many influences that shaped how museum founder Charles Lang Freer collected art. Gohmann holds a PhD in the history of art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is particularly interested in the histories of collecting and the market for Asian art in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France. She has held positions at the Walters Art Museum, the Offices of Historic Alexandria, the Ackland Art Museum, and the National Gallery of Art.

Education

• B.A. from Kenyon College in Art History
• M.A. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Art History
• Ph.D. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Art History