The Autry National Center announce the appointment of accomplished anthropologist and scholar, Dr. Shelby J. Tisdale, to the newly created Vice President of Curatorial and Exhibitions position. Reporting to the Autry’s President and CEO, Dr. Tisdale’s extensive experience in museum management and curation of Native American and Southwest culture exhibitions will serve to guide the Center’s curatorial process, including its intellectual vision, and shape the future direction of exhibitions and acquisitions.
Dr. Tisdale will oversee the curatorial staffs of the Autry and Southwest Museum Collections, oversee the Autry’s exhibition schedule, create and implement scholarly exhibitions, expand scholarship and public learning, collaborate with outside scholars, and manage and expand the Autry’s diverse collections and acquisitions.
Most recently, Dr. Tisdale was the Director of the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, NM with prior experience at the Millicent Rogers Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, Philbrook Museum of Art, Arizona State Museum, School of American Research, Burke Museum, and University of Colorado Museum. She has also served on the faculty of Pima Community College, University of Arizona, Arizona Western College, and University of California Extension, Riverside. She was also the Southwest Collections consultant for the exhibition Infinity of Nations at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York. Her writing credits include award-winning publications Woven Worlds: Basketry from the Clark Field Collection (2001), and Fine Indian Jewelry of the Southwest: The Millicent Rogers Museum Collection (2006). Her latest publication, Pablita Velarde: In Her Own Words (2012), is the first of three in a series on three generations of Santa Clara Pueblo women artists also featuring Helen Hardin and Margarete Bagshaw. – theautry.org/