Saint Louis Art Museum, Deputy Director and Chief Curator

The Saint Louis Art Museum has named Jorge Rivas, PhD as the inaugural Emily Rauh Pulitzer Deputy Director and Chief Curator.

In his new role, Rivas will oversee the museum’s curatorial departments, the art preparation and installation, conservation, registration, and exhibition departments.  He will also develop and lead the implementation of a master plan for the museum’s collection, aimed at identifying new areas for collecting and presenting art, and ensuring the museum’s focus on engaging a new generation of visitors.

Rivas brings a variety of leadership and curatorial experiences in art museums and a major international private collection, as well as a background as an architect and industrial designer. He comes to SLAM from the Denver Art Museum as the Frederick and Jan Mayer Curator of Latin American Art and Head of the Mayer Center, where he directed the largest and most comprehensive collection of Spanish colonial art in the United States.

Before joining the Denver Art Museum, Rivas served as an independent curator in New York and as an associate curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Prior to then, he was the curator of Spanish colonial art for the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisnero.

Rivas holds a doctorate and master’s degree in decorative arts, design history and material culture from The Bard Graduate Center in New York. He also holds a master’s degree in industrial design from Università degli Studi di Firenze, in Italy, and an architecture degree from Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Read the full press release here.

Sarah James and Claire Hennessey led this search with Ivy Couch and Siobhan Hanley.