The Princeton University Art Museum has appointed Alexandra Letvin as its new associate curator of European Art. Letvin joins Princeton from the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio, where she has served as assistant curator of European and American art since 2019. She will begin her appointment at Princeton early this summer.

The newly endowed position is named in honor of Duane Wilder, who was an avid art collector. He bequeathed his extensive collection to the museum upon his death in 2017. In 2020 the Museum presented The Eclectic Eye, a digital exhibition featuring highlights from Wilder’s collection that ranged from sixteenth-century northern European paintings, including works by Jan Asselyn, Jan Both and Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, to contemporary photography.

At Princeton, Letvin’s portfolio will include guiding the museum’s program in European art from the medieval period to 1945 and integrating the European tradition more fully into global inquiries. Letvin’s appointment comes at a critical time for the museum, which last year began construction on a dramatic new facility designed by Sir David Adjaye, scheduled to open in late 2024. Letvin will be responsible for shaping collections displays in the new building, originating exhibitions, conducting research, making acquisitions and working closely with campus and broader communities.

Alexandra Letvin is a specialist in early modern Spanish art. She graduated magna cum laude from Williams College with a bachelor’s degree in art history and received a master’s and PhD in the history of art from Johns Hopkins University. Before joining Oberlin, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and has held curatorial fellowships at the Meadows Museum in Dallas and the Baltimore Museum of Art.