Ann Temkin | |
Birth Name: | Ann T. Temkin |
Birth Date: | 26 December 1959 |
Birth Place: | Torrington, Connecticut U.S. |
Occupation: | Museum curator |
Alma Mater: | Harvard University Yale University |
Ann Temkin (born December 26, 1959) is the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.[1] [2] [3]
Born in Torrington, Connecticut,Temkin is the daughter of Dr. Abraham Temkin and Joann Temkin (née Bernstein).[4] She earned her bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1981 and a Ph.D. in art history from Yale University in 1991.[5]
Temkin began her career as a Curatorial Assistant in MoMA's Department of Painting and Sculpture. She then joined the Philadelphia Museum of Art, first as Assistant Curator and then the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Twentieth Century Art.[6] Her exhibitions included, among others, "Thinking Is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys" (1994), "Constantin Brancusi" (1995), "Alice Neel" (2001), and "Barnett Newman" (2002).[7] Temkin commissioned new works by artists such as Sherrie Levine, Richard Hamilton, and Gabriel Orozco for the "Museum Studies" series.[8]
In 2003, she returned to MoMA and was named The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture. In 2008, Temkin became the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture. Upon assuming leadership of the department, Ms. Temkin initiated the reimagining of the Museum’s collection galleries, transforming them from medium-specific spaces into integrated presentations that are fluid rather than fixed, and offer multiple points of view rather than one canonical narrative. Ms. Temkin has also focused on reshaping the acquisitions program of the Painting and Sculpture Department, dramatically expanding the breadth of the collection.
Exhibitions that she has curated include: Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today (2008), Gabriel Orozco (2009), Abstract Expressionist New York (2010), Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store and Mouse Museum/Ray Gun Wing (2013), Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series (2013), Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New (2013), Jasper Johns: Regrets (2014), Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor (2014), Picasso Sculpture (2015), Studio Visit: Selected Gifts from Agnes Gund (2018), Judd (2020), and Matisse: The Red Studio (2022). She is currently preparing a multi-authored anthology of essays about the first generation of women at MoMA.
Temkin is married to Wayne Hendrickson,[9] a biophysicist at Columbia University. She has a daughter, Rachel, and two stepdaughters, Helen and Inga.
Temkin is the author or co-author of several books, including: