German art scholar named associate curator at Busch-Reisinger Museum

The Harvard Art Museums have announced the appointment of Lynette Roth as Daimler-Benz Associate Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum. A specialist in German art of the early 20th century, Roth’s highly disciplined and innovative work in the academy and in the museum field has distinguished her early in her career. Roth’s position will be effective Jan. 3, 2011.

“I am happy to welcome Lynette to our staff,” said Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard Art Museums. “Her academic experience and her original work as a curator and writer make her perfectly suited to this position and to our teaching and research mission.”

In 2008, Roth curated a groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, titled “Köln Progressiv 1920–33: Seiwert–Hoerle–Arntz,” which focused on three core members of the artistic circle known as the Cologne Progressives. The exhibition then traveled in 2009 to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto under the title “Painting as a Weapon.” The accompanying catalog, edited and authored by Roth, appeared in both English and German and has been hailed as a definitive book on the subject. Roth also has taught at Johns Hopkins University, lectured in the United States and abroad on wide-ranging aspects of German art production, and published several articles and essays.

“I am thrilled to be joining the staff of the Harvard Art Museums at such an exciting moment in their transformation,” said Roth. “The Busch-Reisinger Museum has a unique and significant history, and its integral role in the American reception and understanding of art from German-speaking countries is essential to the Art Museums’ mission. I welcome the opportunity to oversee and continue to shape such an outstanding collection, and to work together with the staff and the Art Museums’ dedicated supporters towards our common goals.”

Roth received a Ph.D. in the history of art from Johns Hopkins University in 2009 and a B.A. in interdisciplinary studies and German languages and literature from the University of Michigan in 1998. Her awards include a Fulbright scholarship, and a Dedalus Foundation fellowship, and she is currently the Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Modern Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Roth’s work there will culminate in the first comprehensive and scholarly catalog (forthcoming in 2012) on the museum’s extensive Max Beckmann paintings collection.

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