Staff

Andrea Barnwell , an art historian, writer, and critic, is the Director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Her primary research interests are African American, Black British, and Contemporary African art. Her writings have been featured in major publications including To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Rhapsodies in Black: The Art of the Harlem Renaissance, and African Americans in Art: Selections from The Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1999 she organized and was the principal author of The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art. Her critical writings have appeared in numerous journals including the International Review of African American Art, African Arts, and NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art. She is the recipient of numerous academic and scholarly awards including a MacArthur Curatorial Fellowship in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Art Institute of Chicago (1998-2000). She was recently selected to participate in the 2003 class of the Museum Management Institute at the Getty Leadership Institute. Barnwell, an alumna of Spelman College, completed her Masters and Doctorate degrees in art history from Duke University. Her monograph, Charles White, The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art, Volume I, was published by Pomegranate Communications in 2002. Barnwell currently serves on the board of the Metropolitan Atlanta Art Fund.

Anne Collins Smith joined the Museum staff as Curator of Collections in September 2003. Smith recently 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 there, she also developed 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. An alumna of Spelman College, Smith completed her B.A. in English and Art History in 1996 and her M.A. in Visual Arts Administration at New York University in 1998. Her research interests include cosmopolitanism and African Diasporic continuity in artistic and cultural practices. She served as an intern at the Cinque Gallery in New York (1997 – 1999) and a Romare Bearden Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum (1999 – 2000).