Curriculum Vitae
Earl A. Powell III
Director, National Gallery of Art (1992-2019)

Born 24 October 1943, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Married Nancy Landry Powell, three children

Ph.D. Harvard University, 1974
Field of expertise includes 19th- and 20th-century European and American Art
A.M. Harvard University, 1970
A.B. Williams College, 1966 with honors, double major in Art History and European History

Military
U.S. Navy, 1966-1969
Navy Officer Candidate School, 1966
Navigation, Legal, Personnel Officer
Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve, 1969-1980

Director, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 1992-2019
Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, 1980-1992
Executive Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979-1980
Museum Curator, Senior Staff Assistant to the Assistant Director and Chief Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1976-1978
Curator of the Michener Collection and Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Texas at Austin, 1974-1976
Teaching Fellow in Fine Arts, Harvard University, 1970-1974

Chairman
U.S. Commission of Fine Arts

Trustee
American Federation of Arts
Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Norton Simon Museum
White House Historical Association

Member
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Philosophical Society
Association of Art Museum Directors
Committee for the Preservation of the White House
Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities
Fine Arts Committee, Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies
National Portrait Gallery Commission
President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities
The Walpole Society

Honorary Degrees and Awards
Harvard University Travelling Fellowship, 1973-74
Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Otis Parsons Institute, 1987
Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Williams College, 1993
King Olav Medal, awarded by King Olav V of Norway, 1978, for Edvard Munch: Symbols and Images, National Gallery of Art
John Harvard Award for Community Service, Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Southern California, 1991
Grand Official Order of the Infante D. Henrique medal, awarded by the Government of Portugal, 1995, for
The Age of the Baroque in Portugal, National Gallery of Art
Williams College Bicentennial Medal, 1995
Mexican Cultural Institute Award, 1996
Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Republica Italiana, awarded by the Government of Italy, 1998
Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, awarded by the French Government, 2000
Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, awarded by the Minister of Culture and Communication of France, 2004
Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, awarded by the Mexican Government, 2007
Centennial Medal, awarded by the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2008
Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, 2009

Dissertation
English Influences in the Art of Thomas Cole (1801-1848), Harvard University, 1974

Publications
American Art at Harvard, 1973. A catalogue of a major retrospective of the Harvard University
holdings in American art (co-author).
Selections from the James Michener Collection, 1975. Translated into Portuguese. University of
Texas at Austin.
Abstract Expressionists and Imagists: A Retrospective View, 1976. Exhibition catalogue.
University of Texas at Austin.
Milton Avery, 1976. Exhibition catalogue. University of Texas at Austin.
"Maniere Dawson's Woman in Brown," Arts Magazine (May 1977), 122-123.
"Morton Schamberg: The Machine as Icon," Arts Magazine (May 1977), 113-115.
"Thomas Cole and the American Landscape Tradition: The Naturalist Controversy," Arts Magazine (February 1978), 114-124.
"Thomas Cole and the American Landscape Tradition: Associationism," Arts Magazine (April 1978), 113-117.
"John Griefen," Arts Magazine (May 1978), 5.
Introduction to Winslow Homer Portfolio, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978.
The James A. Michener Collection: Twentieth-Century American Painting, catalogue raisonné (Austin, Texas), 1978.
"Luminism and the American Sublime," catalogue essay for American Light: The Luminist Movement, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980.
"The Boston Harbor Pictures," catalogue essay for Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980.
"The American View: Landscape Paintings and Drawings," catalogue essay for An American Perspective: Nineteenth-Century Art from the Collection of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1981.
"Thirty-nine paintings for the price of . . . Samuel F .B. Morse's Gallery of the Louvre," Smithsonian (October 1982), 144-147.
Thomas Cole, monograph, Abrams, New York, 1990.

December 2009