Toledo Museum of Art Names Mellon Fellowship Recipient
Dr. Halona Norton-Westbrook of the San Francisco Bay Area has been named the third post-doctoral Mellon Fellow at the Toledo Museum of Art.
The fellowship program, underwritten by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, enables participants to learn the Museum’s inner workings firsthand as part of the executive staff.
“Thanks to the generosity of the Mellon Foundation, we’re able to cultivate young professionals who will be among the next generation of museum leaders,” said Toledo Museum of Art Director Brian Kennedy. “The aim of this fellowship is special in that we are investing in the future of museums. We’re preparing the art historians and scholars who will be in charge decades from now, equipping them with the management skills essential for institutional success.”
Candidates must have completed their doctoral studies within the last five years in art history or a related discipline and be strong academic performers with a keen interest in museum management.
Selected Fellows travel and conduct research independently and complete an interdisciplinary project related to a personal or scholarly interest in museum work. They also collaborate with the curatorial department to expand access to the art collections and work with artists. Fellows become ad hoc members of the Museum’s executive team during their tenure and work on special projects for the office of the director.
Norton-Westbrook, whose doctoral research at the University of Manchester, England, centered on the history of collecting in American and British art museums and the evolution of the curatorial profession, will begin her two-year commitment to TMA in September.
She first became interested in museum management while an American history and studio art major at Mills College in Oakland, California. While an undergraduate student, she served as a curatorial intern at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, helping to catalogue O’Keeffe’s drawings.
After completing her bachelor’s degree in 2005 and working for a year as a curatorial and administrative coordinator at Mills College Art Museum, she relocated to London to pursue a master’s in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art. There she studied the history and theory of the art museum from 1750 to present and served as the graduate curatorial research intern at The Courtauld Gallery, assisting with planning and provenance research for the exhibition Renoir at the Theatre: Looking at ‘La Loge.’
In 2011, she completed an advanced museum management traineeship at London’s Garden Museum, where she assisted the director with new curatorial and educational initiatives. She completed her Ph.D. in museology and art history at the University of Manchester in 2013.
“Those experiences, coupled with Norton-Westbrook’s extensive research on the development of the curatorial profession in the twentieth century, were considered a great asset,” said Amy Gilman, TMA associate director and fellowship administrator.
“Halona is a welcome addition to our institution,” Gilman said. “This fellowship is not only focused on nurturing art historians, it also positions them to become well-versed in the requirements of running an art museum. Since her research is a unique intersection between art history and museum studies, Halona brings a perspective that makes her an ideal museum Fellow.”
Norton-Westbrook is also an accomplished lecturer and public speaker, discussing topics ranging from the rise of the American art museum to the development of curator and director training at Harvard in the early 20th century. Her speaking engagements have ranged from the Association of Art Historians conference in Glasgow, Scotland, to regular lectures at the University of Cambridge in England for the history of art department.
The Toledo Museum’s second Mellon Fellow, Rhodes Scholar Dr. Adam Levine, began his fellowship in January 2013.
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Organization Name: Toledo Museum of Art
Organization Address: Toledo, OH