Dallas, TX—August 29, 2024—The Dallas Museum of Art has appointed Dr. Emily Friedman as the inaugural Allen and Kelli Questrom Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings. A specialist in the history of graphic arts, with an emphasis on European prints and drawings from the early 15th to the late 18th century and broad expertise in American and contemporary art, Dr. Friedman joins the DMA staff with experience in curatorial work, publications, and collection management at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Vanderbilt University Museum of Art, and, most recently, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She will work under the supervision of Dr. Jacqueline Chao, The Cecil and Ida Green Curator of Asian Art, to drive exhibitions, acquisitions, and research on the Museum’s global holdings of prints and drawings, which comprise almost 6,000 works.
The Allen and Kelli Questrom Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings position was made possible through an extraordinary gift from Allen and Kelli Questrom. Prior to this gift, former DMA trustee William B. Jordan and his husband, Robert Dean Brownlee, provided significant funds through a bequest to the DMA to establish the William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee Endowment, creating the DMA’s first works on paper department. These significant gifts enable the DMA to deepen its commitment to collecting, preserving, researching, and displaying prints and drawings, a significant portion of its holdings.
“The Dallas Museum of Art deeply appreciates the generosity of Allen and Kelli Questrom,” said Dr. Agustín Arteaga, The Eugene McDermott Director. “We are excited to honor their legacy by appointing the distinguished Dr. Emily Friedman as the inaugural Allen and Kelli Questrom Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings. Her exceptional talent will be a tremendous asset to our museum and the Dallas community.”
“These exceptional donations from four stalwart supporters of the DMA come at a critical moment in the museum’s history as we plan for the future,” said Dr. Nicole R. Myers, Chief Curatorial and Research Officer. “We are thrilled to expand our curatorial team with this inaugural curatorship for prints and drawings and cannot wait to see how Emily shapes the growth, display, and scholarship of this significant collection within our global holdings.”
Before coming to the DMA, Dr. Friedman was the Suzanne Andrée Curatorial Fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, where she is collaborating on a major exhibition and publication on the screenprinting and publishing studio Brand X Editions, on the occasion of the recent gift of their archive, numbering over 300 works. She has also worked on several exhibitions and rotations, most recently co-curating a show on the darker side of the etching revival in 19th-century Paris. Prior to her role at PMA, Dr. Friedman was the inaugural consulting curator of works on paper at the Vanderbilt University Museum of Art. She has held fellowships and internships at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the High Museum of Art.
“I am honored to be joining the curatorial team at the DMA and excited for the opportunity to bring new attention to the museum’s holdings of works on paper,” said Dr. Emily Friedman, the Allen and Kelli Questrom Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings. “By establishing the first department of works on paper at the DMA, William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee set a strong precedent for the support of this work at the museum—a legacy that has been continued by the Questroms. I look forward to building on the groundwork that they’ve laid for this department while serving the Dallas community and beyond.”
In 2023, Dr. Friedman received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from The Johns Hopkins University, where she specialized in the cultural and technical history of printmaking and drawing and completed a dissertation that brought new attention to a group of printmakers active in Lyon between 1500 and 1550. This research was supported by a two-year Samuel H. Kress Foundation Institutional Fellowship at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. An active scholar and published writer, she is a co-editor and organizer of the Print as Archive project.