RELEASE DATE: APRIL 28, 2020
UNC Greensboro (UNCG) today announced the appointment of Juliette Bianco as Director of the Weatherspoon Art Museum and adjunct faculty in the College of Visual and Performing Arts as of September 1. Juliette will succeed Nancy Doll, who steps down on July 31 after 22 years of dedicated and successful service. Ann Grimaldi, Weatherspoon’s Curator for Education, will serve as acting director for August, and Nancy will be available to Juliette during her transition later this year.
Bianco has 25 years of experience as an art museum professional. She comes to UNCG from the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, her undergraduate alma mater, where she has served in various leadership capacities, including Deputy Director since 2013. The American Alliance of Museums calls the Hood Museum a “national model” for college and university museums. She oversaw the museum’s operations and a recent $50M museum renovation and expansion, managed exhibition planning and design, and led strategic plan development.
Her scholarly interests focus on transformational leadership in higher education and university museums as centers of innovative teaching and learning and hubs for exploring diversity, creative partnerships, and the benefits of strategic planning. In addition to curating and co-curating numerous exhibitions including those of artists Wenda Gu, Stacey Steers, and Edward Burtynsky, Bianco has published on art and museum practice, including Off the Shelf: A Conversation with MANUAL (Gulf Coast, 2015) and Go with the Flow: Fluxus at Play in a Teaching Museum (Museums, Etc. 2011). Needless to say, her experience and philosophy align completely with UNCG’s mission and giant steps mentality.
Bianco holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of Chicago and is a graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute’s residence program for museum administrators. She completed the Doctor of Education degree at Northeastern University in 2020.
“Provost Dana Dunn and I would like to thank the search committee and search chairs Margaret Benjamin and Peter Alexander, whose efforts and expertise saw us through the search to this very successful conclusion,” said UNCG Chancellor Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. “We welcome Juliette and thank Nancy Doll, whose outstanding leadership has been transformative, resulting in significant increases in non-student attendance, loan requests from major museums on a global scale, fundraising, and enhanced curricular incorporation across a wide array of disciplines. Juliette is well prepared to further this legacy and continue to grow the Museum’s impact on this campus, this community, and beyond.”
“I am thrilled and honored to be joining the Weatherspoon Art Museum,” stated Juliette Bianco, “an institution with an inspiring legacy and diverse collection that I have long admired, as well as the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and the Greensboro community. Engaging with the art of our times has never been more important than now, and I look forward to leading the Weatherspoon’s efforts to provide a place for campus and community to learn, collaborate, and grow together.”
Photo: Eli Burakian–Dartmouth College.
About the Weatherspoon Art Museum
Mission
Embracing its public service role, the Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro fosters the ability of art to impact lives and connect multiple communities.
History
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro was founded by Gregory Ivy in 1941 and is the earliest of any art facilities within the UNC system. The museum was founded as a resource for the campus, community, and region, and its early leadership developed an emphasis—maintained to this day—on presenting and acquiring modern and contemporary works of art. A 1950 bequest from the renowned collection of Claribel and Etta Cone, including prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse and other works on paper by American and European modernists, helped establish the Weatherspoon’s permanent collection. During Ivy’s tenure, other prescient acquisitions included a 1951 suspended mobile by Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning’s pivotal 1949-50 Woman, and the first drawings by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson to enter a museum collection.
In 1989, the museum moved into its present location in The Anne and Benjamin Cone Building designed by the architectural firm Mitchell Giurgola. The museum has six galleries and a sculpture courtyard with over 17,000 square feet of exhibition space. The American Alliance of Museums accredited the Weatherspoon in 1995 and renewed its accreditation in 2005 and 2015.
Collections + Exhibitions
The collection of the Weatherspoon Art Museum is one of the foremost of its kind in the Southeast. It represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Among the nearly 6,500 objects in the collection are works by such prominent figures as Sanford Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Nick Cave, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Louise Nevelson, Gordon Parks, Adrian Piper, Jackson Pollock, Betye Saar, Cindy Sherman, Amy Sillman, David Smith, Jennifer Steinkamp, Joseph Stella, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Edward Weston. The museum regularly lends to major exhibitions nationally and internationally.
The Weatherspoon is also known for its dynamic exhibition program. Through a lively annual calendar of exhibitions and a multidisciplinary educational program for audiences of all ages, the museum provides an opportunity for visitors to consider artistic, cultural, and social issues of our time—enriching the life of our university, community, and region.
UNC Greensboro
Led by Chancellor Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., UNC Greensboro is one of only 59 doctoral institutions recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for higher research activity and community engagement. Founded in 1891 and one of the original three UNC System institutions, UNC Greensboro is one of the most diverse universities in North Carolina with 20,000+ students and 3,000+ faculty and staff members from 90+ nationalities. With 17 Division I athletic teams, 85 undergraduate degrees in over 125 areas of study, and 74 master’s and 32 doctoral programs, UNC Greensboro is consistently recognized nationally among the top universities for academic excellence and value. For additional information, please visit uncg.edu and follow UNCG on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Weatherspoon Art Museum
UNC Greensboro
1005 Spring Garden Street
Greensboro, NC 27412, (336) 334-5770, weatherspoon@uncg.edu
For more information or press images, contact:
Loring Mortensen, (336) 256-1451, lamorten@uncg.edu
