Dr. Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw

Faculty Director

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw (she/her) is the Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Professor in the Department of the History of Art and the inaugural faculty director of the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on portraiture and issues of representation, with an emphasis on the construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the American context. She has previously served on the faculty of Harvard University and as the Director of Research, Publications, and Scholarly Programs at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. In addition to her books, The Art of Remembering, Essays on African American Art and History, (Duke: 2024), Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker (Duke: 2004) and First Ladies of the United States (Smithsonian: 2020), she has also curated numerous exhibitions, including Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century (2006), Represent: 200 Years of African American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2015), and I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women, at the National Portrait Gallery.

Emily Zimmerman

Director of Exhibitions and Curatorial Affairs

zimmee3@upenn.edu

Emily Zimmerman (she/her) is the Director of Exhibitions and Curatorial Affairs at the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania. She was previously the Director + Curator of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington, where she advocated for artists using an expansive intersectional lens to advance racial and gender equity and worked with students to become active participants in their arts ecology.  Prior to joining the Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Emily served as the Associate Curator of Programs at the Henry Art Gallery, where much of her work focused on building institutional partnerships and off-site programming. She began her curatorial career as the Associate Curator at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), producing commissions and residencies with Gordon Hall, Annie Dorsen, and Melvin Moti. She has curated over 50 commissions, solo, and group exhibitions with artists such as Pierre Huyghe, Clotilde Jiménez, Jesper Just, Marisa Williamson, Kerry Tribe, and others. She has organized over 300 performances, festivals, lecture and film series, galas, community celebrations, and workshops. She has taught graduate seminars on exhibition design and interdisciplinary practices, and has regularly taught an undergraduate seminar on “Curating Contemporary Art” for University of Washington, and the Department of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania.

Emily’s writing has appeared in BOMB and Contemporary Performance, and she has served on review panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, New York State Council on the Arts, Artist Trust, 4Culture, among others. Emily earned her MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and her BA from New York University.

Elizabeth McClaffery

Interim Gallery Manager & Public Engagement Coordinator

eamccla@upenn.edu

Elizabeth McClafferty (she/her) is the Interim Gallery Manager and Public Engagement Coordinator at the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania. She provides administrative support to the Interim Director of Exhibitions and Programs and the Interim Director of Development and Marketing. In addition, Elizabeth coordinates the Engaging Minds Through Art Program, oversees the ARG Student Advisory Board and Student Docent programs, and assists with exhibitions.

Most recently Elizabeth served as the Gallery Manager at the Stanek Gallery in Philadelphia, where she began as Public Relations Coordinator in 2018. At Stanek, Elizabeth oversaw the strategic and tactical aspects of over 25 exhibitions and led collaborations with numerous Philadelphia arts organizations. Prior to her work at the Stanek Gallery, Elizabeth served as the Academic Year Intern in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has additional experience in archival fields. Elizabeth received her B.A. in Art History and a minor in Visual Arts from the University of Chicago.