Jonathan Bober, senior curator of European Art at the Blanton Museum of Art since 2010 and prior to that, curator of prints, drawings and European painting since 1988, will leave The Blanton on April 30 to become curator and head of the Department of Old Master Prints at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Blanton Director Ned Rifkin said, “Over his 23 years of dedicated service, Jonathan Bober has made an exceptional contribution to The Blanton. His focus on, and great passion for deepening the museum’s collection of prints and drawings and paintings from Europe, has distinguished him in numerous ways. It is a great tribute to his excellent work here that our country’s museum, The National Gallery of Art, has invited him to continue his work in Washington, D.C. , affording him an even larger national and international platform. All of us at The Blanton wish him every possible success in his new position and will look for great things from him in the future.”
During his tenure at The Blanton, Bober was responsible for the acquisition of more than 11,000 works of art of considerable range and the highest quality, including those in the Suida-Manning and Leo Steinberg collections. Among the exhibitions he has conceived and presented at The Blanton, arguably none was more revelatory than The Language of Prints, 2008. Concurrent with the national annual meeting of the Print Council of America, the exhibition and its proposition of an innovative framework for examining this medium, prompted much dialogue and re-thinking of traditional approaches. Bober’s in-depth scholarship of the Genoese Renaissance master, Luca Cambiaso, resulted in the first major U.S. exhibition of the artist — Luca Cambiaso, 1527 – 1585, in partnership with Genoa’s Palazzo Ducale — and the first publication on the artist in English. Beyond his exhibitions and collection building, Bober has mentored and trained hundreds of graduate students.
