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Of Interest
September 21, 2020
Portait of Steven Nelson inside the National Gallery of Art.

Steven Nelson

© 2020 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Steven Nelson, Dean at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), National Gallery of Art, Washington, has been elected as a Trustee of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, effective immediately. Dr. Nelson joins an eight member board that works with the President and staff to advance the goals of the Foundation.

Nelson’s award-winning scholarship, teaching, administration, and service have contributed to his international recognition as a leader both in his areas of expertise and in art history more broadly. Prior to his appointment as Dean of CASVA in July, Dr. Nelson was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at CASVA (2018 – 2020), on leave from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he served as a professor of African and African American art history and as the director of the UCLA African Studies Center. Before his distinguished two decades tenure at UCLA, Mr. Nelson held teaching positions at Tufts University and Wellesley College.

Additionally, Dr. Nelson was the presenter of the inaugural Richard D. Cohen Lectures on African and African American Art at Harvard University. He has held visiting appointments at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and has published widely. Nelson earned his BA in studio art at Yale University, and his AM and PhD in art history at Harvard University.

In welcoming Dr. Nelson to the Kress Board of Trustees, Carmela V. Franklin, Chair, shares, “His scholarship and breadth of learning, his long experience as a teacher and administrator in varied institutions, and now his leadership of one of our country’s foremost centers for the study of the history of art will contribute mightily to the Board’s charge of sustaining the mission, relevance and programs of the Foundation centered upon the Western European tradition.”