Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

Syracuse University Art Museum Announces New Curator

Friday, November 5, 2021, By News Staff
Share
CuratorMelissa YuenSyracuse University Art MuseumVanja Malloy

The Syracuse University Art Museum has announced the appointment of Melissa Yuen, Ph.D., as the museum’s new curator. Yuen, a curator and art historian, comes to Syracuse from the Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and will join the museum staff on Dec. 1.

“Dr. Yuen shares our passion for the mission of an academic museum to act as a universitywide connector that supports curricular engagement, research and experimental learning,” says Vanja Malloy, director and chief curator of the museum. “Through her work at other university museums, including the Sheldon Museum of Art and the Cantor Arts Center, she has applied her academic rigor to bring new insights to the art collection that forge interdisciplinary conversations about important topics, such as housing inequity. I am delighted to welcome her to the museum’s staff and look forward to working with her in shaping the museum’s exhibition program.”

Melissa Yuen

Melissa Yuen

As curator of the Syracuse University Art Museum, Yuen will be responsible for conducting scholarly research, generating exhibitions, and facilitating access and awareness of the museum’s permanent collection of more than 45,000 objects. The collection surveys the international history of printmaking and has extensive holdings in photography and social cartooning, as well as strong collections in 18th-, 19th– and 20th-century American and European painting and sculpture. Yuen’s appointment allows the museum to expand many of its established curatorial and educational programs, including the inaugural Art Wall Project that commissions emerging contemporary artists to create site-specific installations each academic year.

Yuen’s most recent role is the associate curator of exhibitions at the Sheldon Museum of Art, where she is part of the museum’s leadership team. At Sheldon, she is responsible for generating all exhibition content for the museum’s 13 galleries, which are re-installed twice each academic year. In spring 2021, she partnered with several Lincoln nonprofits and University of Nebraska-Lincoln units to address eviction and housing affordability through the organization of the exhibition, “Barriers and Disparities: Housing in America,” which explored selected moments in the history of inequitable access to shelter.

Prior to her role at Sheldon, she served as the curatorial fellow for European and American Art to 1900 at Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. In 2017 at Cantor, Yuen co-organized the exhibition “Rodin: The Shock of the Modern Body” with Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, interim co-director, McMurtry curator and director of the curatorial fellowship program, to celebrate the centenary of Rodin’s death. Featuring almost 100 works, the installation highlighted how Rodin made the figurative sculpture modern by refining the expressive capacity of the human form.

Yuen holds a Ph.D. in art history from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, with a specialization in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art. Her research was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fondazione Lemmermann (Rome), and culminated in her 2017 dissertation, “The Young Mattia Preti in Rome: Style, Baroque Painting, and the Art Market, c. 1630-1653.”

In addition to Yuen’s curatorial background, her study room and classroom teaching experiences at academic museums such as Sheldon and Cantor have prepared her to research and present the Syracuse University Art Museum’s objects to members of the university and greater civic community. Her experience training docents and students on new seasons of exhibitions, presenting lectures to faculty and students, and serving as a liaison for Sheldon’s curricular engagement with the University of Nebraska community strongly align with the Syracuse University Art Museum’s initiative to position and communicate the museum as a center for research and teaching.

“I am excited about the role of curator at the Syracuse University Museum of Art as it will provide the opportunity for me to engage with a global collection of art and develop exhibitions that can foster interdisciplinary conversations on the university’s campus,” Yuen says. “I am energized by the museum’s mission [to serve] as the university’s ‘museum-laboratory’ and [its] commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • Funding Expands for Newhouse Professors’ Work on Technology to Combat Fake News
    Wednesday, May 18, 2022, By Wendy S. Loughlin
  • Biology and Earth and Environmental Sciences Departments Come Together on Diversity and Engagement Initiatives
    Tuesday, May 17, 2022, By News Staff
  • As the School of Education’s Italy Program Returns, Sara Jo Soldovieri ’18, G’19 Reflects on Its Influence
    Tuesday, May 17, 2022, By Martin Walls
  • Center for Fellowship and Scholarship Advising Team Helps Match Students With Unique Experiences That Enhance Their Studies
    Tuesday, May 17, 2022, By Jen Maser
  • COVID-19 Update: Public Health Protocols for Summer 2022
    Tuesday, May 17, 2022, By News Staff

More In Arts & Culture

Syracuse University Art Museum Piloting Object-Based Teaching and Research Faculty Fellows Program

Faculty from all disciplines are invited to apply for a pilot Faculty Fellows Program being hosted this summer by the Syracuse University Art Museum. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research. It is both a way for the art…

Innovator Lorrie Vogel ’88 to Deliver 2022 VPA Convocation Address

Innovator Lorrie Vogel ’88 will deliver the 2022 convocation address to bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates of the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) at the college’s convocation ceremony on Saturday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the stadium….

M.F.A. Exhibition ‘Steady/Retcon’ to be Exhibited on New York City’s Governors Island

  Master of fine arts (M.F.A.) candidates in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) are presenting the thesis exhibition “Steady/Retcon” over two weekends in May at the Syracuse University Governors Island House, 407A Colonels Row, Governors Island, New…

Department of Drama Presents ‘As You Like It’

The Department of Drama presents the final show of the 2021/2022 season with “As You Like It,” a ravishing new musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic story by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery. The production, directed by Rodney Hudson, will perform…

Movie Based on SU Press Book ‘Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano’ Debuts

“The Survivor,” a movie based on the Alan Scott Haft book, “Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano,” debuted on HBO and HBO Max on Wednesday, April 27. It is being released on Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2022 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.