Meet the Staff

Andrea Achi

Mary and Michael Jaharis Associate Curator of Byzantine Art 

Andrea Achi holds a BA from Barnard College and a PhD from New York University. Trained as a Byzantinist, Dr. Achi’s scholarship and curatorial practice focus on late antique and Byzantine art of the Mediterranean Basin and Northeast Africa. She has a particular interest in manuscripts and archaeological objects from Christian Egypt and Nubia, and she has brought this expertise to bear on exhibitions like Art and Peoples of the Kharga Oasis (2017), Crossroads: Power and Piety (2020), and The Good Life (2021) at The Met and in presentations and publications. Currently, she is working on exhibition projects related to Egyptian monasteries, the material culture of Late Antiquity, and Byzantine Art in Africa. 

Selected Publications

• Achi, Andrea Myers, et al. “‘Semper Novi Quid ex Africa’: Redrawing the Borders of Medieval African Art and Considering Its Implications for Medieval Studies.” In Disturbing Times: Medieval Pasts, Reimagined Futures (2020): 73–106
• Achi, Andrea Myers. “THE BLACK MOUNTED RIDERS.” In Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 78.2 (2020): 16–18

Christine E. Brennan

Research Scholar and Collections Manager

Christine Brennan joined the Museum's staff in 1992. She oversees collections management initiatives in the Department of Medieval Art and The Met Cloisters. A specialist in the history of collecting, Christine's research focuses on the market for medieval art in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe and America. Another area of her expertise is provenance research, including issues associated the Nazi/World War II era. She has a BA from Union College, an MA in history/certificate in museum studies from New York University, and a PhD from the Bard Graduate Center.

Selected Publications

• Brennan, Christine E. "Hoentschel's Gothic Importance." In Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, edited by Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide, Deborah L. Krohn, and Ulrich Leben, 144–63. Exh. cat. New York: Bard Graduate Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, and Yale University Press, 2013.
• ———. "The Brummer Gallery and The Business of Art." Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 27, no. 3 (2015): 455–68.

Shirin Fozi

Paul and Jill Ruddock Associate Curator

Shirin Fozi is a specialist in northern European medieval art with a focus on monumental sculpture from Germany and France. Trained primarily as scholar of the twelfth century, Dr. Fozi has published widely on funerary monuments, female monasticism, and modern collections of medieval art. She holds degrees from Harvard University (PhD, 2010; MA, 2005) and Williams College (BA, 2001), and before arriving at the museum in 2022 she taught art history on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh (2013-2022), as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University (2010-2013), and as lecturer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2003-2010) and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (2002-2010).

Selected Publications
Fozi, Shirin.  Romanesque Tomb Effigies: Death and Redemption in Medieval Europe, 1000–1200. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2021.
——— and Gerhard Lutz, eds. Christ on the Cross: The Boston Crucifix and the Rise of Medieval Wood Sculpture, 970–1200. Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, vol. 14. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020.
———. “Reinhildis has died: Ascension and Enlivenment on a Twelfth-Century Tomb,” Speculum 90/1 (January 2015), 158–94.

Melanie Holcomb

Curator and Manager of Collection Strategy

Melanie Holcomb attended Smith College and the University of Michigan and is a specialist in ivories and manuscripts. Dr. Holcomb was curator of the exhibition Pen and Parchment (2009) and oversees The Met's collection of early medieval art. Her interest in comparative religion led her to earn a certificate in Jewish art at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She has taught several courses on Jerusalem and was selected to speak at the Museum's first TEDx conference.

C. Griffith Mann

Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge

C. Griffith Mann oversees the medieval collection and departmental staff at both The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Dr. Mann received his BA from Williams College and his PhD from Johns Hopkins University. A specialist in the arts of late medieval Italy, Dr. Mann has curated exhibitions on the medieval cult of relics, the art and archaeology of medieval Novgorod, and thirteenth-century French manuscript illumination. Before joining the department, Dr. Mann served as deputy director and chief curator at The Cleveland Museum of Art (2008–13) and the director of the curatorial division at The Walters Art Museum (2002–08).

Selected Publications

• Mann, C. Griffith. Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, edited by Martina Bagnoli, Holger Klein, and James Robinson. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010.
• ———. "Relics, reliquaries, and the limitations of trecento painting: Naddo Ceccarelli's Reliquary Tabernacle in the Walters Art Museum." Word and Image 22, no. 3 (2006): 251–259.
• ———. "Picturing the Bible in the Thirteenth Century." In The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library's Medieval Picture Bible, edited by William Noel and Daniel, 38-59. Weiss. London: Third Millenium Publishing Ltd., 2002.

Julia Perratore

Assistant Curator

Julia Perratore holds a BA from New York University and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. She specializes in western medieval sculpture from 1100 to 1500, with a focus on the Romanesque period. She is particularly interested in the arts of medieval Iberia, and especially the impact of cross-cultural interaction on the visual arts there and throughout the western Mediterranean region. In addition to these areas, Dr. Perratore has also published on late medieval devotional imagery in England.

Selected Publications

• Perratore, Julia. "The Saint Above the Door: Hagiographic Sculpture in Twelfth-Century Uncastillo," Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 9, no. 1 (2017), 72–98.
• ———, Elisa A. Foster, and Steven Rozenski, eds. Devotional Interaction in Medieval England and its Afterlives (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
• Blog articles by Julia Perratore

Peter Barnet

Curator Emeritus (retired 2016)

Peter Barnet served as curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where he organized the exhibition Images in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age (1998) and co-authored the accompanying catalogue and the Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Detroit Institute of Arts. He supervised major gallery renovations and reinstallations at the Met from 1998 on, including the exhibitions Lions, Dragons and Other Beasts: Aquamanilia of the Middle Ages, Vessels for Church and Table (2006) at the Bard Graduate Center, and Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art—Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2012–13), which traveled to Tokyo and Beijing. He is currently working on a book about the medieval sculpture collection at the Museum.

Selected Publications

• Barnet, Peter. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture; 75th Anniversary Edition, Revised and Expanded, edited by Peter Barnet and Nancy Wu. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012.
• ———. Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim, edited by Peter Barnet, Michael Brandt and Gerhard Lutz. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013.

Barbara Drake Boehm

Curator Emerita (retired 2021)

Barbara Drake Boehm is co-curator of the exhibitions Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven (2016), The Game of Kings (2011–12), Prague: The Crown of Bohemia (2005), and Enamels of Limoges (1996), and curator of Medieval Jewish Art in Context (2011–12). She recently contributed to the exhibitions L'Art du Jeu (2012–13) (Musée de Cluny, Paris) and Treasures of Heaven (2010–11) (Cleveland, Baltimore, London). A graduate of Wellesley College, Dr. Boehm directs the Curatorial Studies program administered with the Institute of Fine Arts, from which she received her PhD.

Selected Publications:

• Met Blogs: Blog articles by Barbara Drake Boehm
• MetPublications: Selected publications by Barbara Drake Boehm

Helen C. Evans

Curator Emerita (retired 2021)

Dr. Helen C. Evans retired as the Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art in 2021. At The Met, she installed the Mary and Michael Galleries of Byzantine Art, the first galleries of Byzantine art in a major encyclopedic museum. Her major groundbreaking exhibitions include The Glory of Byzantium (843–1261) in 1997, Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557) in 2004, Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (7th–9th Century) in 2012, and Armenia! in 2018. Byzantium: Faith and Power received the Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Award from the College Art Association for the best exhibition catalogue. Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (7th–9th Century) won the World Book Award as the best new book in Islamic Studies from The Ministry of Culture and Religious Guidance, The Islamic Republic of Iran. She is a former head of The Met’s Forum of Curators, Conservators and Research Scientists, a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and the recipient of numerous awards from the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian church.

Dr. Evans is chair of the Board of the Mary and Michael Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture (MJCBAC), a director of the American Associates of the St. Catherine Foundation, and a member of the Academic Board of Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Culture. She is immediate past-president of the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) and past president of the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) and AAMC Foundation. She has chaired the Editorial Board of the CAA’s Art Bulletin, received many grants, taught widely, and advised museums in the U.S. and abroad. In 2020, the Armenian General Benevolent Union (A.G.B.U.) established the Helen C. Evans Scholarship for students studying Armenian art, art history, and the early church.

Timothy B. Husband

Curator Emeritus (retired 2016)

Timothy B. Husband worked in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters for more than forty years. He studied at the Fogg Museum as an undergraduate at Harvard, received his MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, and completed his doctoral coursework at Columbia. Focusing on the later Middle Ages, mostly in the German-speaking world, his interests include sculpture, tapestry, goldsmiths' work, ceramics, manuscripts, and stained glass in both the secular and ecclesiastical realms. He organized many exhibitions, including The Treasury of Basel Cathedral (2001) and The Medieval Housebook and the Art of Illumination (1999). His most recent publication is The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry.

Charles T. Little

Curator Emeritus (retired 2016)

Charles T. Little holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. His main areas of interest are medieval ivory carving and sculpture, and he has published widely in both areas. He co-authored, with Elizabeth C. Parker, The Cloister Cross: Its Art and Meaning (1994), edited the exhibition catalogue Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture (2006), and organized the exhibition The Winchester Bible: A Masterpiece of Medieval Art (2014–15). He is a past president of the International Center of Medieval Art.