Dr Melissa Chiu (’89)

Dr Melissa Chiu (’89) has been appointed as Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Melissa is currently Director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, where she has worked for the last 12 years, and is credited with transforming the museum into one of the most dynamic destinations for modern and contemporary art in the country.

At Loreto Kirribilli, Melissa was a keen art student and a recipient of the Lynn Patterson Art Prize. Before forging her career in the United States, Melissa earned her bachelor’s degree in art history and criticism from Western Sydney University and her master’s degree in arts administration from the College of Fine Arts at UNSW. She completed her Ph.D. with a dissertation on experimental Chinese art at Western Sydney University in 2005. She has authored and edited several books and catalogues on contemporary art, and has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the Museum of Modern Art, and other universities and museums.

Melissa said of her new appointment, “I look forward to ensuring that the Guggenheim in New York remains a place of joy and learning about art and artists for all who visit.”

Photo credit: Greg Powers. Courtesy of the Hirshhorn.