Carnegie Museum of Art

Chief Conservator, Carnegie Museum of Art

Areas of focus: Collections Care: Conservation and Preservation

Ellen Baxter oversees CMOA’s conservation program, and is responsible for the care and maintenance of the museum’s paintings, drawings, and works on paper. She has been working in the field for more than 30 years, and has been at CMOA since 1990. Her early work in Pittsburgh revolved around the care of dozens works by Andy Warhol during the foundation of The Andy Warhol Museum. She supervised the cleaning and restoration of John White Alexander’s 3900 square-foot mural cycle, The Crowning of Labor. Before arriving in Pittsburgh, she was a private conservator in Charlotte, NC, and a fellow at the Walters Museum, Baltimore. She holds undergraduate degrees in studio arts, art history, and chemistry, and a Master’s degree in art conservation from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

To schedule an interview, email the museum.

The Henry J. Heinz II Director

Areas of focus: Contemporary Art

Eric Crosby was appointed the Henry J. Heinz II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art in 2020. He initially joined the museum in October 2015 as the Richard Armstrong Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, becoming Senior Curator in 2018 and Interim Director in 2019. Guided by a belief in museums’ potential to facilitate meaningful connections between artists and communities, Crosby is charting a new course for the 125-year-old institution by creating an artistic program that animates local concerns within a broader picture of the world today. Integral to that program is the Carnegie International, one of the world’s most significant surveys of contemporary art and the museum’s flagship exhibition. Under Crosby’s direction, the museum will open the 58th edition of the Carnegie International on September 24, 2022.

Since joining Carnegie Museum of Art, Crosby has sought to advance the museum through dynamic exhibitions, ambitious acquisitions, events, and program. He most recently curated Working Thought, a group exhibition exploring how contemporary artists have engaged with
critical issues of labor, class, and economic disparity that have shaped American life past and present. For his research on the project, Crosby was awarded a curatorial fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in 2018. Crosby has also broadened Carnegie Museum of Art’s reach through strategic partnerships locally and nationally, including exhibitions such as 20/20: The Studio Museum in Harlem and Carnegie Museum of Art, and expanded the museum’s community-based programming with initiatives such as Inside Out, the museum’s first-ever outdoor event series featuring over two dozen Pittsburgh-based performing artists and arts organizations. He has also left an indelible mark on the museum’s collection presentations by overseeing the institution through the reinstallation of the museum’s postwar and contemporary art galleries with Crossroads: 1945 to Now and its decorative arts and design galleries with Extraordinary Ordinary Things.

Prior to joining Carnegie Museum of Art, Crosby was Associate Curator, Visual Arts, at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Crosby studied at Wesleyan University (BA) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (MA).

Teenie Harris Community Archivist, Carnegie Museum of Art

Areas of focus: Teenie Harris, Photography

Charlene Foggie-Barnett hails from Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District and was born to Civil Rights leaders Bishop and Mrs. Charles H. Foggie. She researches the Teenie Harris Archive’s photos, conducts outreach, collects and records oral histories that result from the Archive’s exhibitions, events, lectures, blogs, and tours. Currently, Foggie-Barnett is vice president of the African American Historical and Genealogical Society of Pittsburgh and is a member of the Association of African American Museums. Foggie-Barnett knew and was photographed by Harris from the age of 3 months through adulthood.

To schedule an interview, email the museum.

Curator of Photography, Carnegie Museum of Art

Areas of focus: Photography, Contemporary African Art

Prior to joining Carnegie Museum of Art in May 2015, Dan Leers was an independent curator in New York City and a curatorial advisor to the 2013 Venice Biennale. From 2007 to 2011, he served as the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellow in the department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. During his tenure at MoMA, Leers organized the exhibition New Photography 2011: Moyra Davey, George Georgiou, Deana Lawson, Doug Rickard, Viviane Sassen, Zhang Dali. He graduated with a BA from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and an MA from Columbia University. Since arriving in Pittsburgh, Leers has curated Strength in Numbers: Photography in Groups and William Henry Fox Talbot and the Promise of Photography.

To schedule an interview, email the museum.