Curatorial Staff

The Marie and Hugh Halff Curator of American Art and Mellon Chief Curator

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William Keyse Rudolph joined the San Antonio Museum of Art in December 2013 as The Marie and Hugh Halff Curator of American Art and Mellon Chief Curator, a newly created position supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and endowed by Marie Halff in honor of her late husband. Dr. Rudolph served at the Milwaukee Art Museum as the Constance and Dudley J. Godfrey, Jr. Curator of American Art and Decorative Arts since early 2011, and concurrently as Director of Exhibitions since 2012. He previously served as Curator of American Art at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, MA, and as the Pauline Gill Sullivan Associate Curator of American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, as well as holding research positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the departments of European Decorative Arts After 1700 and European Paintings Before 1900. Dr. Rudolph is the co-organizer, along with Carol Eaton Soltis, of Thomas Sully: Painted Performance, a major retrospective at the Milwaukee Art Museum that traveled to the San Antonio Museum of Art February–May 2014. Other major exhibitions for which he was organizing curator include: In Search of Julien Hudson: Free Artist of Color in Pre-Civil War New Orleans (2011–12); and Bluebonnets and Beyond: Julian Onderdonk, American Impressionist (2009–09). Dr. Rudolph was presenting/venue curator for 30 Americans (2013); Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: Treasures of Kenwood House, London (2012); and Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy (2008). He is the author of Vaudechamp in New Orleans (2007) and Treasures of English and American Painting and Decorative Arts from the Julian Wood Glass Jr. Collection (2011, with Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley). A Trustee of the Association of Art Museum Curators, Dr. Rudolph has held adjunct teaching appointments at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia; Southern Methodist University; University of North Texas; Worcester State University; and the Community College of Rhode Island. Dr. Rudolph earned his Ph.D. in the history of art from Bryn Mawr College, an M.A. in art history from the University of Virginia, a post-graduate diploma in the history of art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, and a B.A. from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.