{"id":724110,"date":"2026-06-25T00:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/724110\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:33:09","slug":"crystal-bridges-fresh-off-major-expansion-hires-courtenay-finn-as-next-chief-curator-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/724110\/","title":{"rendered":"Crystal Bridges, fresh off major expansion, hires Courtenay Finn as next chief curator – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art<\/a>, which inaugurated a 114,000-sq.-ft expansion of its campus in Bentonville, Arkansas earlier this month<\/a>, has made three changes to its leadership team, most notably hiring Courtenay Finn as chief curator. Finn, who previously served as the chief curator and director of programmes at California\u2019s Orange County Museum of Art (now the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art<\/a>), will start in her new role spanning Crystal Bridges and its contemporary and performing arts wing the Momentary on 24 August.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am thrilled to be joining the incredible team at Crystal Bridges, especially at this moment of growth and expansion,\u201d Finn said in a statement. \u201cI have watched the extraordinary work being done since the museum\u2019s founding, and I am excited to build on our shared commitment to exhibitions, programmes and initiatives that increase access, spark curiosity and transform and expand traditional narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Orange County Museum of Art, Finn led the curatorial programme alongside former chief executive and director Heidi Zuckerman as the institution opened its new Morphosis-designed building<\/a> in Costa Mesa in October 2022. During her tenure there, she secured the acquisition of more than 100 works for the museum\u2019s permanent collection (including pieces by Joan Brown, Derek Fordjour and Luchita Hurtado) and curated the 2025 edition of the museum\u2019s California Biennial, Desperate, Scared, But Social<\/a> (with Christopher Y. Lew and the associate curator Lauren Leving) as well as shows devoted to Leonor Fini and Leonora Carrington, Fred Eversley, Alice Neel and others.<\/p>\n

Finn was previously the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, a senior curator at the Aspen Art Museum and a curator at the New York nonprofit Art in General.<\/p>\n

Finn takes over the chief-curator role in Bentonville from Austen Barron Bailly, who was promoted<\/a> to deputy director of curatorial affairs in February. In addition to Finn\u2019s hiring, Crystal Bridges and the Momentary have appointed Ryan Owen as chief development officer (he started on 15 June) and Shayne Hart as chief communications and marketing officer (a role he began in February). Finn, Owens and Hart will all join the institutions\u2019 executive council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which inaugurated a 114,000-sq.-ft expansion of its campus in Bentonville, Arkansas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[66194,228,226,227,21920,229,88,6359,311429],"class_list":["post-724110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-appointments-departures","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-crystal-bridges-museum-of-american-art","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-museums-heritage","tag-the-momentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}