News Release: 18 October 1999

National Gallery of Art Names Jeffrey Weiss Head of Department of Modern and Contemporary Art

Washington, DC -- National Gallery of Art director Earl A. Powell III has announced the appointment of Jeffrey Weiss as head of the department of modern and contemporary art. He replaces Marla Prather, who was the Gallery’s head of twentieth-century art and who will become curator of post-war art at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

"Jeffrey Weiss is a respected scholar in his field and has organized exceptional exhibitions during his time at the Gallery," said Powell.

Weiss has held various curatorial positions in the Gallery’s department of twentieth-century art since 1991 and became curator of twentieth-century art in 1999. He was the curator of the exhibition Mark Rothko (1998) and co-curator of Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906 (1997). He has worked on recent permanent collection installations of early modern and post-war art in the East Building and is organizing an exhibition, Pure Painting: Cubism - Futurism - Abstraction, scheduled for 2002.

Weiss is the author of the book The Popular Culture of Modern Art: Picasso, Duchamp, and Avant-Gardism (1994) and editor of the exhibition catalogue, Mark Rothko (1998). He has lectured and written articles on Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Marcel Duchamp, and on various topics related to French modernism and the New York School.

Weiss received his Ph.D. in 1991 and his M.A. in 1983 from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York, and graduated with a B.A. in 1980 from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was a Paul Mellon fellow at the Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts from 1987 to 1990.

Weiss resides with his wife, Stephanie Carroll, in Washington, DC

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

For additional press information please call or send inquiries to:

Press Office
National Gallery of Art
2000B South Club Drive
Landover, MD 20785
phone: (202) 842-6353 e-mail: pressinfo@nga.gov

Deborah Ziska
Chief of Press and Public Information
(202) 842-6353
ds-ziska@nga.gov

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