Betsy Wieseman, a long-time member of CODART, has announced her retirement from her position as Curator and Head of the Department of Northern European Paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. She has led the department since 2019.

Her tenure, which began just months before COVID-19 reached the US, was productive despite the challenges of the pandemic. She and her team successfully mounted three major exhibitions: Clouds, Ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings; Vermeer’s Secrets; and Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World (on view until November 2). Following Wieseman’s departure, the department will be headed by Alex Libby until a successor is appointed.

Wieseman’s rich career spans decades, with influential roles at several major institutions. Prior to her time in Washington, she served as Curator of European paintings and sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She also spent eleven years at the National Gallery in London, first as Curator of Dutch painting 1600–1800 and later assuming responsibility for Flemish painting as well. In London, she organized key exhibitions such as Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure (2013) and Rembrandt: The Late Works (2015). Her earlier career included curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

A specialist in seventeenth-century Netherlandish art with a particular emphasis on Dutch portraiture and genre painting, Wieseman has also written extensively on topics including the work of Peter Paul Rubens, portrait miniatures, the technical examination of paintings, and the history of collecting.

Betsy Wieseman has been a member of CODART since its foundation in 1998. In 2022, she was featured as a Curator in the Spotlight, where she shared a selection of her favorite works of art that make up her “personal museum.”