Elizabeth M. Grady, Ph.D. is a museum professional, curator, educator and scholar with over 25 years of experience at some of the world’s foremost museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and The Bronx Museum, where she currently serves as Director of Institutional Giving, with a portfolio that includes global engagement strategies. She has advised The Rockefeller Foundation on the role of the arts in building civil society, the William R Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust-funded Guggenheim Social Practice program, and Nike on developing core values, streamlining project management and team building. She has curated over 75 projects overall, and over 20 projects internationally, including biennials in Moscow, Havana and the Canary Islands, with a focus on socially engaged art, and has published over 30 books and journal articles in addition to being featured in several dozen speaking engagements to audiences from academic specialists to emerging artists. She has taught Art History and Museum Studies through the lens of the intersection between art, politics and economics at Northwestern University, DePaul University, NYU, Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, and FIT-SUNY.
In her current role at The Bronx Museum, Elizabeth leads fundraising efforts across foundation, corporate and government portfolios, raising funds for the Capital Campaign and building capacity as the museum prepares to reopen its full campus after a $42.9 million renovation. She has played a key role in Strategic Planning and rebranding, and additionally oversees a new Global Engagement initiative to broaden curatorial purview and build audiences. At The Met, she oversaw and curated the Civic Practice Partnership, a residency program that built sustainable, reciprocal relationships between The Met and historically underserved communities through socially engaged art projects. She also co-led a professional learning community of 21 arts organizations including the Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, the Guggenheim, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and NYU, exploring the impact of the arts in and with communities and administering a $2 million fund. Elizabeth was the inaugural Director of Programs at A Blade of Grass, an organization that supports social arts practice; and she ran the smARTpower program, an initiative of US State Department’ Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and administered by The Bronx Museum, that sent 17 U.S. artists to 15 countries across the Global South to create socially engaged projects in partnership with Embassies and local cultural organizations. Her roles at A Blade of Grass, where she worked with 50+ artists navigating the challenges of using creativity for social change and managing smARTpower, where artists often contended with the complexities of free speech and local political conflicts, uniquely prepared her for Board service with AFI.
Publications include a book on the Civic Practice Project at The Met, the catalog for Guggenheim Social Practices, exhibition catalogues at MoMA and the Whitney, and scholarly essays in an assortment of professional journals.
Elizabeth received her B.A. in Art History and German Literature from Macalester College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from Northwestern University, specializing in German art between WWI and WWII, in particular the way that the negative public opinion of modern art was weaponized by the National Socialists to gain electoral support in the years leading to their seizure of power.
