The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) hired three new curators this year: Christa Clarke, director of curatorial strategy for the new museum project; Dan Byers, curator of modern and contemporary art; and Rachael Nelson, the newest Mellon curatorial fellow.
“Adding these new colleagues, with their particular experience and energy, is really exciting for us,” Deputy Director for Curatorial Engagement Lisa Dorin told the Record.
Clarke started working at WCMA on Sept. 10, while Nelson and Byers will begin in December and January, respectively.
As director of curatorial strategy, a new three-year position at WCMA, Clarke will supervise the process of reimagining WCMA’s collection for the new museum building and installing it into the space, which began construction on Oct. 7 and is set to conclude in 2027.
“It requires a real kind of diligence around managing this project and zeroing in on the most important stories to tell and the most important disciplinary connections for teaching,” WCMA Director Pam Franks told the Record. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dive into the collection as a whole and think about how to present it for the next era of WCMA.”
According to a Nov. 7 press release announcing the new hires, Clarke has more than three decades of museum experience. She most recently served as a senior advisor at the Center for Curatorial Leadership, a curatorial training program based in New York City.
In a previous role at the Newark Museum of Art, Clarke established the museum’s collection of modern and contemporary African art and created its department of global African art.
“This is a real addition for WCMA because we currently do not have anyone on staff who specializes in African art,” Franks said of Clarke’s appointment.
As WCMA’s newest curator of modern and contemporary art, Byers will be responsible for developing exhibitions, supervising existing collections, and managing new acquisitions in his field. The press release described Byers as a leader in the field of contemporary art curation and noted that he has recently focused on commissioning new work by living artists.
Most recently, he worked as the John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard, where he led several exhibitions in collaboration with other museums. During Byers’ tenure, the Carpenter Center featured the work of a variety of high-profile artists, including Harry Smith in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, Morgan Bassichis with the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Candice Lin with the Walker Art Center.
“We strongly feel that [Byers] has the experience to amplify WCMA’s focus on collaboration, not only within institutions but across institutions,” Dorin said.
Franks added that she was excited to bring on two curators with teaching experience: Clarke has taught courses on museum studies, the history of collections, and the politics of representation at New York University, Boston University (BU), and UPenn; and Byers taught curatorial studies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.
“It’s great that they are, in addition to distinguished curatorial leaders, seasoned teachers in a higher education setting,” Franks said.
As the museum’s newest Mellon curatorial fellow, Nelson — who received her master’s in the history of art and architecture from BU in 2023 — will contribute to the ongoing refinement of collections and plan future collections, per the museum’s press release.
WCMA’s fellowship program provides an opportunity for emerging curatorial scholars to immerse themselves in museum practices with mentors from across the field.
According to the press release, Nelson has previously conducted provenance research on collection objects and created a new model for institutional records management as an intern at both the Fenway Alliance and Gibson House Museum, experiences which will inform her work assessing and researching the museum’s collection for the inaugural installation in its new building.
“Nelson also brings a specialized expertise that will help our team, with her training in archaeology and experience with research on material and visual culture in the Ancient Mediterranean,” Franks added.
“These colleagues are really primed to join what is already such a strong team of curators,” Dorin said. “It’s really special to be able to bring their voices to the new WCMA project.”
