THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART (BMA) announced Rhea Combs as the inaugural Senior Fellow in Contemporary and Global Art, an independent, two-year fellowship at the museum.
The newly created role is designed to develop new scholarship and provide unrestricted opportunities to pursue fresh ideas and envision new curatorial concepts that enhance our understanding of art with an emphasis on marginalized voices, international exchange, and community engagement.
Combs brings two decades of curatorial and museum experience to the opportunity. She is joining the Baltimore Museum of Art from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., where she was the director of curatorial affairs and chief curator. She departed the Smithsonian on Jan. 23 and officially starts at BMA on Feb. 17.
According to the announcement, the fellowship focuses on “the future of curatorial practice and considers new models for the study and presentation of art that are rooted in cultural equity, global collaboration, and the unique qualities of contemporary practice to advance meaningful change within the field and beyond.”
Combs will engage nationally and internationally with artists, collectives, and institutions across the African diaspora. The fellowship may culminate in a publication, convenings, or exhibitions based directly on the outcomes of her research and dialogues. The fellowship is funded by the Ford Foundation and The Hearthland Foundation.
DURING HER FIVE-YEAR TENURE at the National Portrait Gallery (2021-2026), Combs served as director of curatorial affairs and chief curator. She led the museum’s curatorial and conservation departments and was also responsible for acquisitions, including major portrait commissions, and helped raise more than $3.5 million for various projects. Her most recent exhibitions include “American Winners: Athletes and Entertainers Who Shaped the Nation” (2025-26) and “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance” (2024–25),” organized in collaboration with author and curator Hilton Als.
In addition, Combs recently co-curated “Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971,” which opened at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, Calif. (2022-23), and traveled to the Detroit Institute of the Arts (2024).
Previously, Combs spent eight years at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (2013-21), where she was the senior curator of photography and film and the founding director of the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts.
She is departing the Smithsonian amid an unprecedented White House challenge to the institution’s independence. Combs’s recent curatorial projects included the National Portrait Gallery’s presentation of “Amy Sherald: American Sublime.” However, the exhibition never opened at the museum because the artist canceled the show, due to censorship concerns (over a painting featured in the show called “Trans Forming Liberty,” 2024) and her objection to modifications requested by the Smithsonian.
The New York Times reported the museum’s caution was an effort “to avoid provoking President Trump,” whose White House is engaging in an aggressive campaign to monitor and control the Smithsonian’s plans and content, threatening its budget and seeking to reshape its governing board.
(Two venues have since been added to the exhibition tour. “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” is currently on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art and travels next to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Ga.)
Combs posted about her new BMA appointment on Instagram. She wrote: “After 13 years with the Smithsonian, including creating numerous exhibitions, presentations, conducting countless tours, publications, public programs, significant acquisitions, commissions, and more—as well as 4+ years with the National Portrait Gallery as the Director of Curatorial Affairs—I am embarking on a wonderful new chapter, one where I will have the honor of working closely with an institution dedicated to the power of art, community and creativity.”
“I am embarking on a wonderful new chapter, one where I will have the honor of working closely with an institution dedicated to the power of art, community and creativity.” — Rhea Combs
THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART announced Combs’s new role on Jan. 15, alongside the appointment of Ellen McBreen, an author, curator, and history of art professor at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., who became the museum’s Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies Fellow in fall 2025.
The Baltimore Museum of Art holds the world’s largest public collection of Henri Matisse (1869-1954), more than 1,600 objects by the French artist, acquired through support from private benefactors and close collaboration in recent years with Matisse’s family. In 2021, BMA opened the Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies and welcomed Denise Murrell as its inaugural visiting fellow (2022-25).
Murrell is the Tisch Curator at Large in the Office of the Director at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she curated the landmark exhibition, “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” (2024). In March, BMA will open a trio of exhibitions dedicated to Matisse, including “Matisse and Martinique: Portraits and Poetry,” guest-curated by Murrell.
McBreen is the museum’s second Matisse fellow. The author of “Matisse’s Sculpture: The Pinup and the Primitive” (2014), she more recently, co-authored the comprehensive monograph “Henri Matisse” with Claudine Grammont (Citadelles & Mazenod, 2025). In 2017, McBreen co-curated “Matisse in the Studio,” which was presented at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Royal Academy of Arts in London. At BMA, she is conducting research for a forthcoming catalog essay, working with Katy Rothkopf, the Anne and Ben Cone Director of The Ruth R. Marder Matisse Center.
“We are thrilled to welcome Rhea and Ellen as fellows at the BMA, as part of our vision to support new expansive scholarship in the histories of art and to create the space necessary to envision the future of museum work,” Baltimore Museum of Art Director Asma Naeem said in a statement. (Naeem was curator of Prints, Drawings, and Media Arts at the National Portrait Gallery, from 2014-2018.)
Naeem continued: “The BMA has long been committed to innovation, experimentation, and to upending convention in service to our communities. Providing these fellowships extends those institutional priorities and reflects our deep interest in advancing critical conversations through different collaborations and methodologies. I look forward to the rich dialogues and opportunities that emerge through these fellowships, and to learning from Rhea and Ellen as brilliant scholars.” CT
IMAGE: Rhea Combs. | Photo by Kelvin Bulluck, Courtesy Baltimore Museum of Art
BOOKSHELF
Rhea Combs contributed an essay to the exhibition catalog “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” (2024). She also co-edited the exhibition catalogs “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance” (2024) with Hilton Als, and “Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971” with Doris Berger. Combs’s publications also include “Through the African American Lens: Double Exposure.” Ellen McBreen authored “Matisse’s Sculpture: The Pinup and the Primitive” (2014), co-edited the exhibition catalog “Matisse in the Studio” (2017) with Helen Burnham, and co-authored the monograph “Henri Matisse” with Claudine Grammont (Citadelles & Mazenod, 2025). Denise Murrell’s publications include the exhibition catalog “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” (2024).
