(New York, July 8, 2021)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Stephan Wolohojian has been named as the John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge of the Department of European Paintings. The appointment follows a rigorous international search with applicants from major museums in the United States and Europe. He will start in the role this month.
Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met, commented: “I am delighted that Stephan Wolohojian will take on this important position at the Museum. He will bring scholarly excellence and energetic vision to the role, along with a deep knowledge of all aspects of the curatorial field, from collecting and acquisitions to compelling interpretation and creative installation. We are confident that Stephan and his extremely talented group of colleagues will develop a bold and thoughtful plan for the next phase of the European Paintings department that will capture the imagination of the Museum’s 21st-century visitors, and I am looking forward to collaborating with Stephan on all of this.”
Since 2015, Wolohojian has served as a curator in the Department of European Paintings, becoming the Jayne Wrightsman Curator in 2019. He also currently guides The Met’s Curatorial Practice Program as the Coordinating Curator. Previously he spent almost a decade at the Harvard Art Museums, where he held roles as the Landon and Lavinia Clay Curator and then as Head of the Division of European and American Art. Wolohojian is a specialist in Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting, as well as 19th-century French painting, having curated important exhibitions in both areas, notably the award-winning A Private Passion, 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, which was on view at The Met in 2003. He also played a leadership role in the complete renovation of the Harvard Art Museums, which reopened in 2014.
“I am thrilled to accept the appointment as John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge of the Department of European Paintings and to have the opportunity to work more closely with the talented colleagues in my department and across the Museum,” said Mr. Wolohojian. “This is a moment of transformation for our department—especially as we prepare to reopen the full suite of renovated galleries upon completion of the skylights project in 2023—and an opportunity to explore ways that we can strengthen and better share the Museum’s remarkable holdings of European paintings."
Stephan Wolohojian received his PhD from Harvard University and was a professor at the University of Delaware before returning to the Harvard Art Museums, where he headed the European and American Art divisions and played a key role in the recent renovation of the museum. He has continued his teaching while at The Met and has been involved in the interim installations of the European Paintings collection throughout the current skylights renovation project.
About The Met’s European Paintings Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's world-famous collection of European paintings encompasses works of art from the 13th through the early 20th century. Apart from its many individual masterpieces by artists as diverse as Jan van Eyck, Caravaggio, and Seurat, the Museum possesses the most extensive collection of 17th-century Dutch art in the western hemisphere, including outstanding works by Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. The Met’s holdings of El Greco and Goya are the finest outside Spain, while the survey it offers of French painting between Neoclassicism and Postimpressionism includes extensive holdings of the work of Corot, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Degas, Cézanne, and Van Gogh.
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July 8, 2021
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