Staff

Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Ph.D., Director

Andrea Barnwell Brownlee is an art historian, curator, writer, and the director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. She is widely recognized for her leadership, ambitious vision, and the impactful exhibition agenda that she has established at Spelman College. Exhibitions including iona rozeal brown: a³ . . . black on both sides (2004), Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons and the Blues (2005), Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and the Academy (2007), Cinema Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970 (2007), María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Dreaming of an Island (2008), Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities (2009), and IngridMwangiRobertHutter: Constant Triumph (2011) are among the projects that she has curated and co co-curated. In 2011 she spearheaded 15 x 15 — an initiative to acquire 15 works of art in celebration of the museum’s 15th anniversary.

Brownlee is the recipient of numerous academic, professional, and scholarly awards including a MacArthur Curatorial Fellowship in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Art Institute of Chicago (1998 – 2000), a Future Women Leadership Award from Art Table (2005), and the President’s Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art (2005). In 2010, she was awarded the inaugural Nexus Award from the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center. Brownlee, an alumna of Spelman College, earned her Ph.D. in art history from Duke University in 2001.

Brownlee, an alumna of the Getty Leadership Institute, is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors. She has served on the boards of several arts organizations including the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences and the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund. In 2008 Brownlee served as the Vice Chair of the City of Atlanta Arts Funding Task Force. Cinema Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970, which she curated with Valerie Cassel Oliver, senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in 2007, was recently selected for inclusion in the upcoming Havana Biennial (May 11 – June 11, 2012).

Anne Collins Smith, Curator of Collections

Anne Collins Smith began her tenure as the curator of collections in 2003. She works closely with the director to implement and plan the Museum’s exhibitions and programs. She provides leadership in the area of collections management and strategically plans for the permanent collection’s sustainability and growth. Smith launched the Museum’s Beyond the Blackboard program to engage students, faculty, staff, and the wider community with the museum’s collections and experiences. In 2009 she organized the exhibition Showcase & Tell: Treasures from the Spelman College Permanent Collection, which traced the evolution of the permanent collection through the College’s visual arts history.

Smith completed an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellowship at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College where she implemented interdisciplinary interpretation and programming related to the Museum’s permanent collection and exhibitions. During her tenure at the Davis Museum, she also conceptualized and curated the exhibition The Space Between: Artists Engaging Race and Syncretism, which explored how artists across the African Diaspora engage and bring into accord their multipartite heritages and identities.  Smith is an alumna of Spelman College, having completed her bachelor's in English and art in 1996 and her master's in visual arts administration at New York University in 1998.  She interned at the Cinque Gallery, which was founded by artists Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, and Norman Lewis in New York City and was also the Romare Bearden Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Smith’s interests include arts and the economy, arts leadership, audience development, cosmopolitanism, the evolving role of the curator, material culture, public art, visual culture, and African Diasporic continuity in artistic and cultural practices. She is a member of ArtTable: The Leadership Organization for Women in the Arts; Delta Kappa Gamma Society International for Key Women Educators, and the Atlanta Women’s Foundation’s Destiny Fund. Smith is a recent alumna of the Metro Atlanta Arts and Cultural Coalition’s Art Leaders of Metro Atlanta, the Independent Curators International’s Curatorial Intensive, and the Getty Leadership Institute’s Museum Leaders: The Next Generation programs.

Wyatt Phillips, Administrative Assistant

Wyatt Phillips is the administrative assistant for the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art.  He joined the Museum staff in the fall of 2009 and possesses a bachelor of science degree in business administration from Oakwood University in Huntsville, Ala. During his administrative career, he has been active at a senior level in diverse environments from education to banking and government, totaling more than 10 years of experience. 

Previously, Phillips worked for companies such as Vanity Fair Brands, Bank of America, and Experian Information Solutions as an executive assistant.  Since arriving at Spelman College, he has exhibited enthusiasm along with the marketing and event planning skills necessary to lead various events and functions at the museum.  He has an unyielding passion for technology and working in a business marketing and events capacity.