Join the Smart Museum of Art and the Nicholson Center for British Studies for the lecture “The Museum as Cenotaph or Time-Machine? Thoughts on Art, History, and Institutions in Our Nearsighted Moment,” with Dr. Julia Alexander, President of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Free, register online. 

About the speaker: Julia Alexander, Ph.D., was appointed as the President of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 2024. Before joining the Kress Foundation, she served as the Andrea B. & John H. Laporte Executive Director and CEO of the Walters Art Museum, in Baltimore, since 2013, and prior to that, the Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at The San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA), where she also served as the Interim Co-Director (2009-2010) and Interim Deputy Director for Education (2010-2011). Before relocating to San Diego, Alexander worked at the Yale Center for British Art from 1997-2008, serving in multiple roles, including Associate Director for Programmatic Affairs and Associate Director for Exhibitions and Publications. 

Alexander has a Ph.D in the History of Art from Yale University (1999) and an M.A. in French Literature, New York University (1992), following the completion of her B.A. in Art History and French at Wellesley College (1989). Alexander recently served as President of the Association of Art Museum Directors’ (AAMD) Board of Trustees, and has been engaged with a number of other entities promoting the arts, including serving as an Assessor for the annual William MH. Berger Prize for excellence in the field of British Art History, and serving on the boards of the Maryland Citizens for the Arts and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.

Image: Dr. Julia Alexander. Photo courtesy of the Walters Art Museum.