HARRY COOPER APPOINTED ASSOCIATE CURATOR OF MODERN ART IN FOGG ART MUSEUM'S NEWLY ESTABLISHED DEPARTMENT OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART

For Immediate Release: December 1, 1997

Cambridge, Massachusetts- Harry Cooper has been appointed associate curator of modern art at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. Cooper is the first to hold this post at the Fogg, and his arrival marks the establishment of the Museum's Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. His five-year appointment began October 6, 1997.

"We are very pleased that Harry Cooper has joined us as our first curator of modern art," Harvard Art Museums' director James Cuno said recently. "He is an exceptional young scholar with a keen eye for the best and most challenging in the art of our century and a critical mind active in current theoretical and historical debates. He is perfect for a teaching and research museum such as the Fogg, and we are confident that he will continue in the Fogg's long line of distinguished curators."

As the first associate curator of modern art, Cooper will oversee the Fogg's holdings of both European and American modern painting and sculpture. The collection contains important works by Picasso, Matisse, Constantin Brancusi, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Alexander Calder, Arshile Gorky, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Morris Louis, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, Kenneth Noland, Mark Rothko, David Smith, and Frank Stella, among many others. The collection is particularly strong in post-1945 abstraction, and in sculpture from David Smith to Kiki Smith.

"Harry will play a pioneering role in the establishment of a new Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Fogg," Cuno noted. "And thanks to the generosity of our friends, especially Barbara Lee, Paul Buttenwieser, and Charlene Engelhard from the Boston area, we will soon begin a search for a contemporary curator to join Harry in this effort. Together, the two curators will give modern and contemporary art strong advocates for an enhanced exhibition, publication, and acquisition program. And while we can boast of some real success in this area over the past decades, we need dedicated specialists in the field to lead us forward with real vigor. Harry Cooper and the contemporary curator will be just such specialists."

Cooper comes to the Fogg from the National Gallery, Washington, where he was the in-house curator of the major Piet Mondrian retrospective exhibited there, as well as at the Haags Gemeentemuseum and at The Museum of Modern Art. He has received numerous fellowships and most recently was offered a coveted three-year post-graduate Mellon Fellowship at the Art Institute of Chicago, which he declined to come to the Fogg.

Cooper received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in June of this year with the completion of a dissertation titled: Dialectics of Painting: Mondrian's Diamond Series, 1918-1944. He earned an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1991, and an A.B. from Harvard University in 1982. Between 1986 and 1989 he taught learning-disabled high school students in Silver Spring, Maryland. He has published an article on Theodor Adorno in the journal October and edited the forthcoming English-language edition of the Mondrian catalogue raisonné written by Joop Joosten. He has lectured widely on Mondrian and jazz.

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For general information on the Harvard University Art Museums, please call (617) 495-9400. For press information or photographs, please contact Kate McShea Ewen at (617) 495-2397. For more information on events, please contact the Friends, Fellows, and Special Programs Office at (617) 495-4544. World Wide Web: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu. The Art Museums' facilities are wheelchair accessible.

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The Harvard University Art Museums comprise three museums (Busch-Reisinger Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum), all located on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA, at the intersection of Quincy Street and Broadway, adjacent to Harvard Yard. The Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., and Sunday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Closed holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18 and on Saturday mornings. For special tour reservations, please call (617) 496-8576. General tours are offered Monday through Friday from September through June. The Fogg tour is at 11:00 a.m.; the Busch-Reisinger tour is at 1:00 p.m.; and the Sackler is at 2:00 p.m.

The Harvard University Art Museums is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.