Personnel news are now available from the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA). Jessica Bell Brown, who joined the BMA in November 2019 as associate curator for contemporary art, is being given more responsibility. Effective immediately, she can call herself Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art.  This promotion coincides with the opening of A Movement in Every Direction. This exhibition was co-organized by Brown. On view in it are newly commissioned works by some of the most prominent black artists working today.

Brown was a consulting curator at the Gracie Mansion Conservancy in New York prior to her move to the BMA. There she curated the exhibition She Persists: A Century of Women Artists in New York, 1919-2019. Active in her career, she has also worked at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Creative Time.  Brown holds an M.A. in Art History from Princeton University and a B.A. in Art History from Northwestern.

In her new position, Brown will lead a department that includes five associate curators, curatorial assistants and fellows. She will also manage collection and presentations of the art of our time.

Brown has received much praise from Asma Naeem, interim co-director and chief curator of the Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown. Naeem emphasizes Brown's "vision," her "keen insights" and "commitment to artists." Now, he says, the goal is to further diversify the collections and expand narratives about art through his exhibitions and programs.