Patricia “Sue” Canterbury has been appointed The Pauline Gill Sullivan Associate Curator of American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, it was announced today by Olivier Meslay, the DMA’s Interim Director and its Senior Curator of European and American Art and The Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art. She will begin work in Dallas on September 19, 2011.

Canterbury comes to the Dallas Museum of Art from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where she was the Associate Curator in the Department of Paintings from 1998 to earlier this year. Canterbury has extensive knowledge of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century American art and the role of transatlantic exchange between the art centers of Europe and the United States. Her masters’ thesis, James McNeill Whistler's The Gold Scab: Eruption in ‘Frilthy’ Lucre, explored Whistler's relationship with his first great patron, Frederic Leyland. 

“I am very pleased to welcome Sue Canterbury to the Dallas Museum of Art and to add her to our curatorial team,” Meslay said. “She is enthusiastic about the important role of American art at the DMA, and her education and broad museum experience make her well-suited to cultivate and showcase the DMA’s important collection of American painting and sculpture.”

In Minneapolis, Canterbury served as curator for a number of exhibitions held at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts including Noble Dreams & Simple Pleasures: American Masterworks from Minnesota Collections, Beauford Delaney:  From New York to Paris, Georgia O’Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction, and Villa America: American Moderns 1900–1950. Prior to her appointment in Minneapolis, she worked as an Assistant Curator at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

“I am thrilled to join the dynamic staff of the Dallas Museum of Art. It's a great institution with splendid collections that are beautifully presented,” said Sue Canterbury. “Dallas has a strong reputation for support of the arts and, consequently, I look forward to being a part of this remarkable community and working with the museum trustees and local collectors to bring even more great art to a great city.”

Canterbury earned her Master of Arts in the History of Art from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where she was awarded the Judith M. Lenett Memorial Fellowship. She received her undergraduate degrees in Art History from Wellesley College, where she was awarded the Plogsterth Prize in Art History and graduated magna cum laude. Upon her arrival at the DMA, one of Canterbury’s first museum projects will be to serve as the curator for the Dallas presentation of the nationally touring exhibition Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, which will be on view at the DMA March 4–May 27, 2012.

American Painting and Sculpture

The DMA’s collection of American art includes paintings, sculptures, and works on paper spanning three centuries and encompassing the three countries of North America: the United States, Mexico, and Canada, as well as works by Latin and South American artists. 

Highlights include masterpieces by John Singleton Copley, Thomas Sully, Frederic Edwin Church, Charles Demuth, Edward Hopper, and Georgia O’Keeffe.