C. D. Dickerson was named dean of the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in 2026. Dickerson joined the National Gallery of Art in 2015 as curator and head of the department of sculpture and decorative arts. He became senior curator of European and American art in 2022. He was also the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Visiting Senior Fellow at the Center in 2014.

While leading the department of sculpture and decorative arts at the National Gallery, Dickerson has been responsible for several key acquisitions, including Luisa Roldán’s Virgin and Child, David d’Angers’s Comte Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe, and an important 17th-century northern European nautilus cup. His first exhibition at the National Gallery was Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain (2019–2020), the catalog for which won the Eleanor Tufts Award for best publication in Spanish art history. He also curated Canova: Sketching in Clay (2023–2024), an exhibition focused on the brilliantly expressive terracotta models of the sculptor Antonio Canova. The accompanying catalog was the first book devoted entirely to the subject. He is currently curating Broken: The Power of the Fragment in Sculpture, which will open at the National Gallery in March 2027, following its presentation at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.

Prior to his time at the National Gallery, Dickerson spent eight years at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth as curator of European art. The exhibitions he curated there included From the Private Collections of Texas: European Art, Ancient to Modern (2009–2010); Bernini: Sculpting in Clay (2012–2013); The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of Seventeenth-Century France (2016–2017); and Casanova: The Seduction of Europe (2017–2018).

Dickerson’s work has been widely published in exhibition catalogs, scholarly articles, and reviews in leading academic journals, including The Burlington Magazine, Storia dell’arte, and Facture. He regularly presents his work in lectures, academic conferences, and scholarly symposia across the United States and Europe. He serves as a board member for Save Venice Inc. and the Chipstone Foundation. Dickerson enjoys volunteering his time to work with young scholars and serve on thesis and dissertation committees.

Dickerson holds a PhD in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, an MA from Washington University in St. Louis, and an AB from Princeton University.