Emily Pegues is assistant curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the National Gallery of Art, where she has worked since 2004.  She joined the Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts in 2007 as a curatorial assistant, later becoming a curatorial associate.  In 2019 she was named assistant curator.

Pegues’s research and publications focus on artistic process in Netherlandish and English sculpture and decorative arts from the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, with particular affinities for archival work and technical analysis of sculpture. She organized and led the first-ever technical studies of the royal tombs of Mary of Burgundy (Church of Our Lady, Bruges, Belgium), the Black Prince (Canterbury Cathedral, UK), and Richard Beauchamp (Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick, UK). Results of these and other studies have been published in The Burlington Magazine and Artibus et Historiae and in various exhibition catalogues and National Gallery publications.

Pegues has lectured and taught widely. Her background in museum education, art, and ekphrasis has led to collaborations on numerous public programs at the National Gallery. One such program is “Poetry is a Country,” a 2023 symposium featuring newly commissioned work inspired by the museum’s collection from poets including then US Poet Laureate Ada Limón, Hanif Abdurraqib, Victoria Chang, Teri Ellen Cross Davis, Heid E. Edrich, Jorie Graham, Ilya Kaminsky, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Jason Reynolds.

Pegues holds a PhD and MA with Distinction from the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she wrote her doctoral dissertation, Jan Borreman and Sculptural Practice in the Burgundian Netherlands, c. 1479–1520. She earned an AB in history of art and Spanish from Sweet Briar College.