Frederic Church Scholar Joins Reynolda House Museum of Ameri

Press Room

Frederic Church Scholar Joins Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Unique Curatorial and Teaching Position

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Sarah R. Smith
336.758.5524
manselss@reynoldahouse.org
or Sharyn Turner
336.758.5580
sturner@reynoldahouse.org

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (September 8, 2009) – Reynolda House Museum of American Art recently named Jennifer Raab as its first Betsy Main Babcock Postdoctoral Curatorial and Teaching Fellow. Raab, a graduate of Yale University with a doctorate in art history, joins Managing Curator Allison Slaby in the museum's curatorial office.

The three-year appointment is the first of its kind in the field, says Allison Perkins, Reynolda House executive director. Raab will assist in developing exhibitions at the museum, pursue her own scholarship, and teach at Wake Forest University, with which the museum is affiliated.

"There are postdoctoral positions that focus on scholarly research, or teaching, or curating, but none that we know of that place equal emphasis on all three," says Perkins. "We are fortunate to have a scholar whose expertise and passion complement the American art collection here at Reynolda House and advance the Wake Forest model of the teacher-scholar."

Raab will debut her expertise alongside other scholars at the museum's October 3 public symposium, "Curious Spectacle': Charles Darwin and the Art of Observation, planned in recognition of the 150th anniversary of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." Raab's talk, "Darwin's Details: Frederic Church and Nineteenth-Century Scientific Thought," will focus on Church's landscapes and their engagement with the work of investigative explorers like Charles Darwin.

"Reynolda House offers such a rich and important collection of American art," Raab says. "This depth and diversity was a key factor in my decision to come here. The collection provides abundant opportunities for teaching, research and exhibition development."

This fall, Raab is curating an installation of Church's seminal painting from the museum's collection, "The Andes of Ecuador." The special exhibition, "The Andes of Ecuador: Science and Spectacle" will be on view in the West Bedroom gallery of the museum Sept. 26, 2009-May 30, 2010.

The author of several articles in catalogues and periodicals and a frequent lecturer, Raab also holds a bachelor's degree in art history from Stanford University.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art is one of the nation's premier American art museums, with masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Frederic Church, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe and Gilbert Stuart among its permanent collection. Affiliated with Wake Forest University, Reynolda House features traveling and original exhibitions, concerts, lectures, classes, film screenings and other events. The museum is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the historic 1917 estate of Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband, Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Reynolda House and adjacent Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda Village feature a spectacular public garden, dining, shopping and walking trails. For more information, please visit reynoldahouse.org or call 336.758.5150.

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