Ann Prentice Wagner has been named director of the Bradbury Art Museum at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, effective July 1.
Since 2021, Wagner has been an independent art curator based in Little Rock. Her professional experience includes what is now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock (2012-2021); the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., (2011-2012 and 2008-2009); and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., (1989-2001).
"I am glad to bring to BAM my lifelong passion for museums as places for people and art to come together," Wagner said in a news release. "I started my art career as a printmaker, so the annual Delta National Small Prints Exhibition is a favorite of mine that brings in great work from all over the United States. It will be exciting to seek out the finest contemporary art exhibitions and programs from around the world to share with our audiences."
The Bradbury Art Museum, formerly known as Bradbury Gallery, is a contemporary art facility on the ASU campus. It was established in January 2001 by Curt Bradbury, vice chairman of Stephens Inc., who provided an endowment in honor of his wife, Charlotte, an alumna of Arkansas State and a former member of the university's board of trustees. In August 2015, the gallery was reestablished as a museum to better reflect its scope and purpose of teaching, presenting and collecting.
Bradbury Art Museum features changing exhibitions of contemporary art in all media. The museum is the site of the Delta National Small Prints Exhibition, an annually held, nationally recognized juried print show of work by artists from the U.S. and abroad.
Wagner, 61, has a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., a master's degree from Boston University, a bachelor's degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and an associate's degree from Montgomery College in Maryland. Her salary will be $60,000, according to an ASU spokesperson.