Chief Curator of New York’s Jewish Museum, Norman Kleeblatt, to Step Down
December 29, 2016 | In the PressFrom ArtForum (https://www.artforum.com/news/id=65641 (opens in a new window))
New York’s Jewish Museum has announced that Norman Kleeblatt, the institution’s Susan and Elihu Rose chief curator is resigning. On January 27, he will continue to work at the museum on a part-time basis until March 2017.
Director Claudia Gould said, “Norman Kleeblatt has organized an impressive and diverse group of major exhibitions while playing a key role in acquiring important and relevant works in various media for our collection of modern and contemporary art.”
Kleeblatt first joined the museum’s staff in 1975 as a part-time conservator and became a curator in 1982. During his over forty-year tenure, Kleeblatt curated numerous exhibitions including “John Singer Sargent's Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children” (2016), “Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976” (2008), “Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art” (2002), and “Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Identities” (1996). He also cocurated several exhibitions including “From the Margins: Lee Krasner and Norman Lewis, 1945-1952” (2014), “An Expressionist in Paris: The Paintings of Chaim Soutine” (1998), and “Painting a Place in America: Jewish Artists in New York, 1900-1945” (1991). He is currently working on an upcoming show, “Charlemagne Palestine’s Bear Mitzvah in Meshugahland,” which will open in March 2017.
Kleeblatt oversaw the museum’s acquisition of works by various artists such as Eleanor Antin, Yael Bartana, William Kentridge, Lee Krasner, Morris Louis, Rebecca Quaytman, Mark Rothko, George Segal, Nancy Spero, and Edouard Vuillard, among others. He earned his bachelor’s degree in art history from Rutgers University and received graduate degrees in art history and art conservation from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.
“I’ve been honored to work with wonderful colleagues at the Jewish Museum, and I’m proud to have seen the museum grow into an internationally known institution,” Kleeblatt said. “It has been extremely fulfilling to have participated in this period of tremendous growth.”
