Katharine J. Wright received her BA in Art History and Studio Art from Williams College and her PhD in Modern and Contemporary Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Pursuing a career as a museum professional, she has worked at a number of institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Morgan Library, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Most recently she held the position of Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Research and Collections Specialist Fellow in the Modern and Contemporary Art Department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She specializes in the study of pre- and post-war American art, with a particular research interest in alternative media, public art, and photography.
Katharine has worked as an independent curator since 2018. She has organized exhibitions on Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Marta Chilindron, George Lois, and numerous other major artists for organizations across the U.S, Europe, and Latin America; in 2019 she spearheaded a major retrospective and catalogue on minimal art for Fundacíon PROA in Buenos Aires. Currently, she is serving as the Associate Curator and Project Manager of the traveling exhibition Picasso Landscapes: Out Bounds (American Federation of Arts, 2023-2024) and as Curator of the national, multi-venue exhibition The Great Encouragement: 100 Years of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (2023). Her research and writing has been published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thames & Hudson, Yale University Press, caa.reviews, and Ridiculosa. She is currently working on a book on the intersection of contemporary American art and advertisements entitled Infiltration Art.
In her free time, Katharine is an avid baker, sailor, traveler, and crafter. She is a practicing lettering artist, pattern designer, and illustrator, whose clients have included Jo Malone, London, Williams College, the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and more. To learn more about Katharine’s art and design work, completed through her business Katie J. Wright Creative, you can visit her portfolio site here.