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Adrienne L. Childs, Ph.D
Education

Ph.D                 Art History, University of Maryland, May 2005

Dissertation: The Black Exotic: Tradition and Ethnography in Nineteenth-Century

Orientalist Art. Minor field: 20th Century African American Art

 

M.A.              Art History, University of Maryland, May 1999

Thesis: Serving Exoticism: The Black Female in French Exotic Imagery 1733-1885

 

M.B.A.          General Business Administration, Howard University, May 1985

 

B.A.               Art History, Georgetown University, Cum Laude, August 1982

Current Projects and Positions

Senior Consulting Curator, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

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Book in progress: Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts, Yale University Pres

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Co Curator: Vivian Browne: My Kind of Protest, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, 2024

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Co Curator: Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM, Montclair Art Museum, 2024

 

Co Curator: Black Baroque: Spectacular Presence in Contemporary Art

 

Exhibitions Curated
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  • Co-Curator, The Colour of Anxiety: Race, Sexuality and Disorder in Victorian Sculpture, The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, England, November 2022 - February 2023.

  • Curator,  Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC, February - December, 2020

  • Co-Curator, The Black Figure in the European Imaginary, The Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, January - May 2017

  • Co-Curator, Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue: From the Collections of William H. and Camille O. Cosby and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Fall 2014

  • Co-Curator, African American Art since 1950: Perspectives from the David C. Driskell Center, The David C. Driskell Center

  • Co-Curator, Creative Spirit: The Arts of David C. Driskell, The David C. Driskell Center, Fall, 2011

  • Co-Curator, Abstract Relations, The University of Delaware University Museums, Spring, 2010

  • Curator, Her Story: Margo Humphrey Lithographs and Works on Paper, The David C. Driskell Center

  • Spring 2010 Curator, Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art, The David C. Driskell Center, Spring, 2009

  • Curator, Arabesque: The Art of Stephanie E. Pogue, The David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, Fall 2008

  • Curator, Evolution: Five Decades of Printmaking by David C. Driskell, The David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, Fall, 2007

  • Curatorial Consultant, Holding our Own: Selections from the Collectors Club of Washington D.C. Inc., University of Maryland University College

  • Curator, Successions: Prints by African American Artists from the Jean and Robert Steele Collection, The Art Gallery, University of Maryland,  2002

  • Curator, Echoes: The Art of David C. Driskell, 1998

  • Assistant Curator, Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection, The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, 1998

Fellowships

  • Research Fellow, Lunder Institute for American Art, Colby College, 2019-2020

  • Curatorial Fellow, Clark Art Institute, October, 2019

  • Alisa Mellon Bruce Visiting Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Nov/Dec, 2018 

  • Shelia Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, Fall, 2012

  • Getty Library Research Grant, The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles, 2012

  • Shelia Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, Fall 2010

  • Fellow, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Summer 2010

  • Pre-Doctoral Fellow, The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora, 2003-2004

  • Graduate School Fellow, The University of Maryland, College Park, 1996-2003

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