Release Date: Wed 10-May-2006 Contact: Ruth Jacobs (pr@colby.edu ) Phone: 207-859-4353

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Sharon Corwin Named Director of Colby College Museum of Art

Colby President William Adams has named Sharon Corwin the Carolyn Muzzy Director and Chief Curator of the Colby College Museum of Art, effective June 1, 2006.

Corwin has served as the museum's acting director since January 2006. She came to Colby in 2003 as the first Lunder Curator of American Art. In that role, she organized exhibitions of works by artists Terry Winters, Julianne Swartz, and Sam Van Aken; and a retrospective exhibition The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture: 60 Years, which opens in July. She founded and curated currents, the museum's annual emerging artist series, initiated and directed the student docent program, taught a course in museum studies, managed museum publications, and oversaw the museum's recent Web site redesign.

Before Colby, Corwin was a faculty fellow in the history of art department at the University of California Berkeley, guest curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and acting assistant director of the Mills College Art Museum.

As Muzzy director and chief curator, Corwin will lead a staff of professionals who administer the collections and programs of the Colby College Museum of Art. Founded in 1959 and now comprising four wings, more than 5,000 works, and more than 27,000 square feet of exhibition space, the museum has built a significant permanent collection that specializes in American and contemporary art. Central to its mission is the museum's role as a teaching resource for academic departments and interdisciplinary programs at the College.

"Sharon Corwin is exactly the right person to lead the museum at this important point in its history," said Colby President William Adams. "She has very broad support among the museum's key audiences and constituencies, and in her role as Lunder Curator she has demonstrated a fine understanding of the strengths of the collection as well as its most important needs. She will be a terrific director."

Corwin is a graduate of New College of Florida. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in 2001 at Berkeley and has been the recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies, the Smithsonian Institution, Duke University, and the University of California. She has participated in national roundtable forums on art museum leadership and has served on several committees of the Maine Arts Commission and the Maine Center for Contemporary Art.

Corwin, her husband, Marty Kelly, and their son, Finnian, live in Waterville.


Colby College Museum of Art

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