Marjorie E. Wieseman Appointed as The Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500–1800, at The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, OH (December 15, 2016) The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has announced the appointment of Marjorie E. (Betsy) Wieseman as the Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500–1800. The museum’s collection of Old Master European paintings and sculpture is of international importance, ranging from works created in the early years of the Renaissance through the Rococo period. Wieseman’s appointment follows an international search. She will assume her responsibilities at the CMA sometime this spring.

“Betsy is an extraordinarily accomplished and productive curator and an elegant writer. The exhibitions she has curated for the National Gallery, London, have been celebrated for their scholarship, sensitivity, and beauty,” said Director William Griswold.

As Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500–1800, Wieseman will oversee the care and development of the collection, and work closely with the Director and Chief Curator on the identification and acquisition of artworks to augment the collection. She will oversee special exhibitions exploring all aspects of European painting and sculpture from 1500 to 1800.

The collections for which Wieseman will be responsible span three hundred years of artistic production throughout Europe, and encompass paintings on panel and canvas and sculpture in wood, terracotta, bronze and marble. Areas of particular strength are the museum’s Italian and Spanish Baroque paintings and German and Austrian Baroque sculpture. The collection also has a number of internationally significant Italian Renaissance paintings and French and Flemish paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries. The museum’s holdings of portrait miniatures are among the most outstanding in the world.

“I am thrilled to have been chosen to be the next Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500–1800. I look forward to working with my new colleagues at the CMA to share the museum’s world-class collection with even wider audiences. The collection offers an endless source of inspiration, and I am honored to have the opportunity to bring these beautiful works to life for museum visitors,” said Betsy Wieseman. 

Wieseman brings more than twenty-five years of curatorial work and museum experience to the CMA. She has been Curator of Dutch Paintings, 1600–1800, at the National Gallery, London, since 2006; 17th- and 18th-century Flemish paintings were added to her purview in 2012. At the National Gallery she curated and co-curated acclaimed exhibitions such as Dutch Flowers (2016); Rembrandt: The Late Works (2014–15); Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure (2013); Close Examinations: Fakes, Mistakes, and Discoveries (2010); and Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals (2007). Also, while at the National Gallery, she curated an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence (2011–12).

Before moving to London, Wieseman held curatorial positions in two Ohio museums. As Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Cincinnati Art Museum, she curated a wide variety of exhibitions including Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait Miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum (2006); Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens (Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, and Cincinnati Art Museum, 2004); and A Brush with Nature: The Gere Collection of Landscape Oil Sketches (2003). As Curator of Western Art before 1850 at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, she spearheaded projects that focused on her area of specialization—17th-century Dutch painting—as well as working on exhibitions that featured (among other topics) American landscapes, German Expressionist paintings, and portrait miniatures.

Wieseman is a prolific scholar. Recent work has included contributions to numerous exhibition catalogues including: Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry (Musée du Louvre, Paris; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; and National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2017); Beyond Caravaggio (The National Gallery, London; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; and The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2016); and Vermeer and Rembrandt: The Masters of the 17th Century Dutch Golden Age (Kyoto, and Tokyo: Mori Arts Centre Gallery and Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, 2016). Among her many other contributions to the literature on 17th-century Dutch art are essays such as “A Courtly Art Comes to The Hague: Portrait Miniatures at the Court of Elizabeth of Bohemia,” in Face Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries, edited by Edwin Buijsen, Charles Dumas, and Volker Manuth (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2012); “Rembrandt’s Portrait(s?) of Frederick Rihel,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 31 (2010); and “Paper Trails: Drawing in the Work of Caspar Netscher, his Pupils and Followers,” in Collected Opinions: Essays on Netherlandish Art in Honour of Alfred Bader, edited by Volker Manuth and Axel Rüger (London: Holberton, 2004).

Holding a PhD from Columbia University, Wieseman has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellowship from CASVA, a Theodore Rousseau Fellowship from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as a Fulbright Grant for Graduate Study Abroad.

Betsy Wieseman will be moving to Cleveland with her husband, Allen Wright.