PAFA Curator of Historical American Art, Dr. Anna Marley, Elected Co-Chair of Association of Historians of American Art

PHILADELPHIA (January 9, 2014) – The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is pleased to announce that Dr. Anna Marley, Curator of Historical American Art, has been elected the next Co-Chair of the Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA).

Marley’s three-year term will begin in February 2014 at the AHAA’s Annual Meeting in Chicago, as part of the College Art Association’s (CAA) 102nd Annual Conference.

Founded in 1979, AHAA is a membership organization and an affiliated society of CAA. AHAA aims to promote “scholarship on art of the United States from the European encounter with Native peoples to contemporary practice through several means.”

“It is with great pleasure and collegiality that I have participated in AHAA over the past 10 years. I am particularly excited about helping with the 3rd biannual conference, to be held in Philadelphia in 2014, and working on a stimulating conference in 2016. I also look forward to finding new ways to harness collaborative energy across the academic and museum worlds to strengthen the American art field,” says Anna Marley.

As Co-Chair, Marley will work closely with AHAA Chair Akela Reason, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Georgia, Chair Emerita Sarah Kelly Oehler, Gilda and Henry Buchbinder Associate Curator of American Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the rest of the board to encourage dialog between museum professionals, academics, and graduate students in the field.

A scholar of American art and material culture from the colonial era to 1945, Marley joined PAFA in March of 2009. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Vassar College, an M.A. in Museum Studies from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware.

At PAFA, Marley has curated the touring retrospective Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit (2012), and edited the acclaimed accompanying catalog, published by the University of California Press. She also curated A Mine of Beauty: Landscapes by William Trost Richards (2012); Virgins, Soldiers, Angels, and Saints: Violet Oakley's Religious Art from the PAFA Collection (2010); and Public Treasures/Private Visions: Hudson River School Masterworks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Private Collections (2009-10). Marley co-curated Modern Women at PAFA: From Cassatt to O’Keeffe (2012); Hidden Treasures Unveiled: Watercolors (2012); and Anatomy/Academy (2011). Currently, Marley is organizing the touring exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887-1920 (2015).

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Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is America's first School of Fine Arts and Museum. A recipient of the 2005 National Medal of Arts presented by the President of the United States, PAFA is a recognized leader in Fine Arts education. Nearly every major American artist has taught, studied, or exhibited at PAFA. The institution's world-class collection of American art continues to grow and provides what only a few other art institutions in the world offer: the rare combination of an outstanding Museum and an extraordinary faculty known for its commitment to students and for the stature and quality of its artistic work.