The Heckscher Museum of Art Announces New Curator Additions to Curatorial, Development Teams

Huntington, NY -- The Heckscher Museum of Art has announced new appointments to the Curatorial and Development departments, each bringing unique professional experience to the Museum.

“As we enter our Centennial year in 2020, we have a full, talented, and professional team in place that will propel us forward into the next 100 years. I’m delighted to welcome these new additions to The Heckscher Museum of Art,” said Michael W. Schantz, executive director and CEO.

Karli Wurzelbacher joins The Heckscher Museum of Art as Curator. An active scholar in the field of twentieth-century American art, Wurzelbacher was most recently a curatorial research fellow at The Baltimore Museum of Art, where she contributed to the first exhibition and publication on Jack Whitten’s sculpture and to a forthcoming Joan Mitchell retrospective and book.

As assistant curator at the Hunter College Art Galleries Wurzelbacher co-curated the exhibition Times Square Show Revisited. In curatorial roles at the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, she contributed to exhibitions on the work of Charles Burchfield and Murray Jones, among others. Wurzelbacher earned a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Delaware, where she also taught classes and curated the exhibit American Graphic: Picturing Social Change in the 1920s and 1930s at the University Museums. She holds an M.A. in Art History from Hunter College, CUNY, and B.A. degrees from the Ohio State University. Her research and exhibitions have been supported by the Corning Museum of Glass, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, the Keith Haring Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Wurzelbacher is “excited to work with The Heckscher Museum’s strong holdings in American Modernism, and looks forward to fostering rich relationships with the museum’s audiences.”       

Caitlynn Schare has been named Development Manager and will work on increasing membership, and growing member programs and special events.  Schare was most recently director of development at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art in New York City.  She has more than 9 years experience working in non-profits. Schare graduated Adelphi University with a B.A. in Anthropology and minors in Art History and Forensic Anthropology, and holds an M.A. from New York University in Museum Studies. She has held positions at the Ward Melville Heritage Organization, and Habitat for Humanity of Suffolk.   She enjoys “working on special events and members programming and looks forward to delving deeper into those interests at The Heckscher Museum.”

Christine Marzano joins the Curatorial department as Registrar.  She was previously registrar at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook, NY.   Marzano holds a B.A. in Fine Arts with a minor in Art History from SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology. She received a M.A. in Library Science from The Palmer School of Library and Information Sciences at C.W. Post, with concentration in Rare Books and Special Collections and Records and Archives Management.

About The Heckscher Museum of Art

The Heckscher Museum of Art, founded in 1920 by philanthropist August Heckscher, is located in scenic Heckscher Park in Huntington, New York. Through its exhibitions and related programs, the Museum provides inspiring and transformative experiences to encourage a broader understanding of the past and present and to enrich life-long learning. The Museum’s collection comprises close to 2,500 works from the 16th to the 21st century, including European and American painting, sculpture, works on paper, and photography. For information about The Heckscher Museum of Art, visit Heckscher.org.