CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Harvard Art Museums Appoint Joachim Homann as New Curator of Drawings

The Harvard Art Museums announced the appointment of Joachim Homann as the new Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings, effective 19 August 2019.

Homann is currently curator of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine. During his tenure, European and American drawings and works on paper have been a particular focus of collecting and exhibitions. Homann’s work on Bowdoin’s collection of drawings culminated in 2017 with the publication of the first catalogue that featured highlights of this unique resource. Why Draw? 500 Years of Drawings and Watercolors introduced works from the studios of Raphael and Peter Paul Rubens to drawings by Eva Hesse and Titus Kaphar.

Information from the press release, 5 June 2019

Since arriving at Bowdoin in 2010, Joachim Homann has organized many exhibitions, which, in addition to Why Draw? include Modernism for All: The Bauhaus at 100; Richard Pousette-Dart: Painting|Light|Space; Night Vision: Nocturnes in American Art, 1860–1960; Hendrick Goltzius: Mythology and Truth; Richard Tuttle: A Print Retrospective (with Christina von Rotenhan); Maurice Prendergast: By the Sea (with Nancy Mathews); and Printmaking ABC: In Memoriam David P. Becker.

Joachim Homann (photo: Dennis and Diana Griggs)

Joachim Homann (photo: Dennis and Diana Griggs)

Prior to his position at Bowdoin, Homann was curator at the Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University (2007–10) and curator of exhibitions and lecturer in art history at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso (2005–07). Homann returns to Harvard, having served as a graduate curatorial fellow in the Busch-Reisinger Museum from 2001–03.

In his role at the Harvard Art Museums, Homann will oversee the extensive drawings collection—one of the most significant areas within the museums’ broader collections. The drawings collection was greatly enhanced by the recent transformative gift of over 300 Dutch, Flemish, and Netherlandish drawings from collector and longtime supporter George S. Abrams. That gift further established the Harvard Art Museums as the major North American site for the appreciation, research, and study of works on paper from the Dutch Golden Age.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669), A Farm on the Amsteldijk, ca. 1650–52
The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge

At Harvard, Homann will develop exhibitions and regular rotations of drawings within the permanent collections galleries, as well as publications, public lectures, and other programming. The Harvard Art Museums are unique in the degree to which drawings and other works on paper are fully integrated in the collections galleries; drawings also have enormous impact through teaching and programming in the Art Study Center and are regularly featured in three curricular galleries that support coursework across a wide range of academic departments and schools at Harvard.