Elissa Auther

Elisa Auther is the Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.

Elissa Auther
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Maryland at College Park
Thesis	Gustave Courbet's Sleep : paresse et luxure and the threat of tribadism in mid-nineteenth century France (1993)

Education

Auther received her B.A. from San Francisco State University, and her Ph.D. in History of Art from the University of Maryland, College Park.[1]

Career

Auther was at the University of Colorado where she was an associate professor of contemporary art and director of the art history and museum studies program from 2003– 2014. In 2014 she moved to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. In 2019 Auther was named deputy director of Curatorial Affairs and the William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design.[1]

Work

Her book "String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art" (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) was known for its revisionist history in re-contextualizing craft in recent contemporary art.[2] Auther co-curated with Bill Arning the retrospective of painter and photographer Marilyn Minter, "Pretty/Dirty" (2015–2016), which toured four cities and closed at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.[3]

Selected publications

• Auther, Elissa (2009-12-21). String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art. Minneapolis, Minn.: Univ Of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-5609-7.[2]
• Auther, E. (2004-03-01). "The Decorative, Abstraction, and the Hierarchy of Art and Craft in the Art Criticism of Clement Greenberg". Oxford Art Journal. 27 (3): 339–364. doi:10.1093/oaj/27.3.339. ISSN 0142-6540.
• Bryan-Wilson, Julia (2011-11-02). Auther, Elissa; Lerner, Adam (eds.). West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965–1977 (1st ed.). Denver, Colo: Univ Of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-7726-9.[4]
• Auther, Elissa (2016), "Sheila Hicks and the consecration of fiber art", Re-envisioning the Contemporary Art Canon, Routledge, pp. 90–103, doi:10.4324/9781315639772-11, ISBN 978-1-315-63977-2, retrieved 2023-06-18

References

1. "Museum of Arts and Design Appoints Elissa Auther as Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs & Chief Curator". Call For Curators. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
2. Reviews of String, Felt Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art
   • Chave, Anna C. (2011). "Review of String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art". Signs. 36 (3): 762–764. doi:10.1086/657511. ISSN 0097-9740. JSTOR 10.1086/657511.
   • Simpson, Mary C. (2011). "Review of String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art". Woman's Art Journal. 32 (1): 67–68. ISSN 0270-7993. JSTOR 41331113.
   • Anger, Jenny (2010-12-09). "Jenny Anger. Review of "String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art" by Elissa Auther". Caa.reviews. doi:10.3202/caa.reviews.2010.139. ISSN 1543-950X.
3. Mendelsohn, Meredith (2015-03-31). "Marilyn Minter's Seductive Paintings and Photographs Collected in First Major Retrospective". Architectural Digest. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
4. Reviews of West of Center
   • Rudnick, Lois (2013). "Review of West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965-1977". Western American Literature. 47 (4): 436–437. ISSN 0043-3462. JSTOR 43023060.
   • FRANCIS, JACQUELINE (2013). "Review of West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965–1977". Journal of American Studies. 47 (2): 581–582. doi:10.1017/S0021875813000327. ISSN 0021-8758. JSTOR 24485551.