Anita Bateman
Associate Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts
November 2021:
Anita Bateman (PhD ’20) has been appointed Associate Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Bateman will work with Alison de Lima Greene, the Isabel Brown Wilson Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, on exhibitions, acquisitions, and the display of the permanent collection, with a special focus on work by African American artists and on defining and expanding long-term collection goals.
Bateman specializes in modern and contemporary African art and the art of the African diaspora with additional interests in the history of photography, Black feminism, and the role of social media in activism and contemporary art. Bateman earned a Ph.D. in Art History & Visual Culture and a Graduate Certificate in African and African American Studies from Duke University, an M.A. in Art History from Duke University, and a B.A. in Art History cum laude from Williams College.
She has held curatorial positions at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, the Williams College Museum of Art, and the Nasher Museum of Art. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Bateman is from Memphis, TN, and is currently living in Providence, RI.
Among her most recent projects, Bateman curated Black Flyyy and Defying the Shadow, two exhibitions at the RISD Museum in Providence; Roots & Roads at Franklin Street Works in Stamford; and co-curated, with Carrie Mae Weems, Beyond Space at the Carr Center in Detroit. Her writing has been published in the International Review of African American Art, in the Photographer’s Green Book, and in the Journal of Black Studies.
