Diane Wright to Join Chrysler Museum of Art

Norfolk, VA —Dec. 26, 2013 —The Chrysler Museum of Art has hired Diane C. Wright as the Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass. Wright begins her new appointment in March 2014. She will be responsible for the display, interpretation, study, and care of works of art in the Museum’s glass collection of more than 10,000 objects, many of which will be showcased in the newly expanded glass galleries when the Museum reopens in Spring 2014.

Diane C. Wright. Click to enlarge.

Wright comes to the Chrysler Museum from the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Wash., where she was the marketing and communications manager. She received a master’s degree in the history of decorative arts and design from Parsons The New School for Design, specializing in glass studies. She has conducted research and lectured on glass for a number of institutions and has served as the Marcia Brady Tucker Senior Curatorial Fellow in the American Decorative Arts Department at the Yale University Art Gallery.

Wright has extensively researched the leaded-glass windows and mosaics of Tiffany Studios. She co-curated the exhibition “Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion” at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York and recently co-curated “Wheaton Glass: the Art of the Fellowship” at the WheatonArts American Museum of Glass in Millville, N.J.

Wright taught courses on the history of glass at the Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons The New School for Design, and George Mason University and has written on glass for Modern Magazine, Glass Quarterly, the Journal of Glass Studies, and the Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin. She is the recipient of the Rakow Grant for Glass Research from the Corning Museum of Glass.

“Diane arrives with an impressive array of academic achievements and an extraordinarily wide range of practical experiences within the world of glass,” said Jeff Harrison, chief curator. “We are certain she will prosper as our new Barry Curator of Glass, and we are delighted to have her on the curatorial team.”

Founded in 1939 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, the Chrysler Museum of Art combines one of America’s great fine arts museums, two significant historic houses and a Glass Studio, the only one of its kind on the East Coast. In addition to maintaining a distinguished permanent collection of more than 30,000 objects spanning nearly 5,000 years of history, the Chrysler Museum offers a comprehensive program of changing exhibitions and education activities for visitors of all ages. The Chrysler Museum is currently closed for a major expansion and will reopen in Spring 2014. The historic Moses Myers House and Chrysler Museum Glass Studio remain open. To learn more about the Chrysler Museum, call (757) 664-6200.

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