Alison Luchs is curator of early European sculpture and deputy head of sculpture and decorative arts at the National Gallery of Art.

Luchs first joined the National Gallery in 1970, when she worked for a year in the communications office. She then returned as a research assistant in the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (the Center) from 1980–1983 and has been in the museum's department of sculpture and decorative arts since 1983.

Luchs has collaborated on various projects, including two systematic catalogue volumes (1993, 2000), the installation of new sculpture galleries (2002), and the exhibition Desiderio da Settignano: Sculptor of Renaissance Florence (2007). She also curated the exhibition An Antiquity of Imagination: Tullio Lombardo and Venetian High Renaissance Sculpture (2009) and collaborated on the exhibition teams for Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence (2015); Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence (2017); and Verrocchio: Sculptor of Renaissance Florence (2018-2019).

Luchs’ extensive knowledge of early European art has resulted in numerous publications, including "A Marble Hunting Parting: The Companions of Diana for Marly" (2008); "Two Hercules Sculptures by Cristoforo Solari" (2007); "The Siren of Ca' da Mula" (2005); "The Stones of Prague" (1999); Tullio Lombardo and Ideal Portrait Sculpture in Renaissance Venice, 1490–1530 (1995); "Stained Glass above Renaissance Altars" (1985), and "Michelangelo's Bologna Angel" (1978). Her English translations include (from German) Martin Wackernagel's World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist: Projects and Patrons, Workshop and Art Market (1981); and (from French) a poem by artist Edgar Degas about a little dancer, “The Little Dancer in Wax and Words: Reading a Sonnet by Edgar Degas” in Degas, volume three of Facture, the National Gallery’s biennial journal on conservation, science, and art history.

Luchs has contributed to The Dictionary of Art and The Encyclopedia of Sculpture. She has lectured on topics including Desiderio da Settignano, the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, hybrid sea creatures in Renaissance bronze, and Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. Her book The Mermaids of Venice: Fantastic Sea Creatures in Venetian Renaissance Art was published in 2010. A related article, “Mermaids East and West: Ningyo Netsuke and their Western Cousins” appeared in the International Netsuke Society Journal 18:1, Spring 2018. She has also published on historic architecture in her native city of Washington, DC, and collaborated on several landmark applications for local buildings.

Luchs’ honors and fellowships include Millard Meiss and Samuel H. Kress Foundation grants (1994) for the publication of Tullio Lombardo and Ideal Portrait Sculpture and the Chester Dale fellowship for dissertation research in Italy (1974–1975). Luchs has twice received the Robert H. Smith Curatorial Fellowship (1988, 1998) and the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Curatorial Sabbatical from the Center (1992–1993, 2003–2004).

Prior to her arrival at the National Gallery, Luchs taught art history at Swarthmore College (1976–1977) and Syracuse University (1977–1980). She received a BA from Vassar College and a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University.