The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art announce the appointment of Oliver Tostmann as the museum’s new Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art, effective October 28, 2013.
Tostmann joins the Wadsworth Atheneum from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where he served as the Lia and William Poorvu Curator of the Collection since 2011. Previously he held fellowship positions at the National Gallery of Art in the Departments of Italian and Spanish Paintings (2007–11). Most recently, he was curator of the international loan exhibition and editor of the catalogue, Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America (2013), which was the first historic exhibition presented in the Gardner’s new wing.
Tostmann holds an M.A. and Dr. phil. in the History of Art, both from Freie Universität Berlin. He has published widely on Renaissance and Baroque artists and has lectured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. Tostmann will oversee the Wadsworth’s vast and distinguished European collection of approximately 900 paintings, 500 sculptures, and 3,500 works on paper. In the reinstallation, European paintings, sculpture, and a rotating selection of works on paper will be integrated with equally stellar examples of decorative arts, drawn from the museum’s collection of 3,000 objects, to tell the rich story of European art, culture, and history.
The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is America’s first public art museum, founded in 1842. The museum is located at 600 Main St., Hartford, Connecticut and is open Wednesdays to Fridays, 11 am – 5 pm, Saturdays and Sundays, 10 am – 5 pm, and the first Thursday of every month 11 am – 8 pm. Please visit www.wadsworthatheneum.org for more information.
