Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A Lauder Chairman, Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum

Sheena Wagstaff leads the Met’s commitment to modern and contemporary art, including the design of the international exhibition program at The Met Breuer (2016-20), artist commissions, and collection displays. She has also curated numerous shows at the Met, amongst which are Gerhard Richter: Painting After All (2020);  Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and The Body (1300-Now) (2018); and Nasreen Mohamedi (2016), and oversaw the David Hockney exhibition (2017). Significant acquisitions have been brought into the collection under her leadership, including works by Pablo Bronstein, Cecily Brown, Phil Collins, Tacita Dean, Peter Doig, Nick Goss, Chantal Joffe, Hew Locke, Sarah Lucas, Adam McEwen, Steve McQueen, Lucy McKenzie, Cornelia Parker (who was also featured as The Met’s 2016 Roof Garden Commission artist), Bridget Riley, Rachel Whiteread, as well as Vanessa Bell, Lucian Freud, Roger Fry, and Barbara Hepworth.  A new Met Façade commission, and an exhibition, each by British artists, are planned in the coming years. With a curatorial team representing expertise from across the globe, she is building a distinctive collection for the Met, both culturally and geographically, to reflect the historic depth of its global collections. Before joining the Met, Wagstaff was Chief Curator of Tate Modern, London, where, for 11 years, she was responsible for initiating the exhibition program, the Turbine Hall artist commissions, and contributing to the conceptual framework of collection displays. With the Tate Director, she worked with architects Herzog & de Meuron on the design for the Tate Modern Switch House building. She curated noteworthy exhibitions such as Roy Lichtenstein; John Burke + Simon Norfolk: Photographs from the War in Afghanistan; Jeff Wall Photographs 1978-2004; Darren Almond: Night as Day; and Mona Hatoum: The Entire World as a Foreign Land. Over the course of her career, Wagstaff has worked for the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; The Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh; and Tate Britain, London, where she played a seminal role in its transformation from the former Tate Gallery. She is a member of the Foundation for the Preservation of Art in Embassies (FAPE), and from 2013-2019, she was a United States Nominating Committee Member for Praemium Imperiale. She has written and edited many publications, and lectured widely. Brought to you by the British Consulate General, New York. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.