John Sexton, President-designate of New York University, today announced the appointment of Mariët Westermann as the new director of NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), its renowned center for research and graduate study for the history of art, archaeology, conservation and museum curatorship. Dr. Westermann’s appointment becomes effective this summer.
Dr. Westermann, who is currently associate director of Research and Academic Pgorams at Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, received her graduate degrees from the IFA.
Dr. Sexton said, “We are delighted to welcome Dr. Mariët Westermann back to NYU. Not only does she possess exceptional qualifications and demonstrably excel as a scholar and administrator, it is clear that she is committed to the sense of mission we have for NYU to lead in higher education, and to become the university that other universities will seek to emulate. The Institute is a unique and treasured asset of this University; I am certain that through her efforts its well-deserved influence and renown will only be enhanced.
“I thank Dr. James R. McCredie for his devoted and excellent service as Director of the Institute since 1983. Under his stewardship, the Institute continued to excel and be widely recognized for its leadership role in graduate training and research in the history of art.
“Finally, my thanks also to the Search Committee — and in particular its chair, Dr. David O’Connor — for its thorough and exhaustive work on behalf of the University. With input from IFA faculty and Board of Trustees, they delivered exceptionally strong and talented candidates to me, as should be clear by our choice of Dr. Westermann.”
Dr. Mariët Westermann — a specialist in northern European Renaissance and Baroque art, especially that of her native country, the Netherlands has been associate director of research and academic programs at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, since 2001. She joined the faculty of Rutgers University in 1995 as an assistant professor; in 2000, she was appointed an associate professor. Prior to that, she had been a lecturer at the University of London’s Goldsmiths’ College, and adjunct instructor in art history at NYU, and a research assistant at the Institute of Fine Arts.
She has had significance experience as a curator, working with the National Gallery, the Newark Museum, the Denver Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Dr. Westermann is the author of numerous books, articles, and reviews. Among her most recent publications are: Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt (The Newark Museum/The Denver Art Museum/Zwolle, the Netherlands: Waanders 2001); Rembrandt: Art and Ideas (Phaidon Press, 2000); and The Amusements of Jan Steen: Comic Painting in the Seventeenth Century (Zwolle, the Netherlands: Waanders, 1997).
Among the professional organizations to which she belongs, Westermann is a member of American Association of Netherlandic Studies and is on the board of the Historians of Netherlandish Art.
She received her B.A magna cum laude in history from Williams College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.
NYU’s distinguished Institute of Fine Arts, located on the upper east side of Manhattan, is devoted to graduate teaching and research in the history of art, archeology, museum curatorship, and the conservation and technology of works of art. Its courses of study prepare students to enter careers of university teaching, museum work, independent scholarship, art criticism, art conservation, and related fields.
New York University, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, was established in 1831 and is one of America’s leading research universities. It is one of the largest and most selective private universities, and it has more international students than any other college or university in the U.S. Through its 13 schools and colleges, NYU conducts research and provides education in the arts and sciences, law, medicine, business, dentistry, education, nursing, the cinematic and dramatic arts, music, public administration, social work, and continuing and professional studies, among other areas.