Lisa Funderburke is director and CEO of the Newark Museum of Art, effective Feb. 1, 2026. | Courtesy NMOA
THE NEWARK MUSEUM OF ART (NMOA) is welcoming a new director and CEO. Lisa Funderburke takes the helm of New Jersey’s largest museum today (Feb. 1). She succeeds Linda Harrison who departed more than seven months ago after leading the museum for six years, from 2019 to 2025.
Funderburke’s appointment was announced last week. She is joining NMOA from the Artists Communities Alliance (ACA) in Providence, R.I., where she served as president and CEO.
“Lisa brings to the museum unique breadth and depth of experience as a museum and arts leader,” NMOA Board Chair Peter Englot said in a statement. He added that he and the search committee “are of one mind that Lisa’s innovative approach and creative ideation are truly unmatched. She has infectious enthusiasm and energy, and we’re confident in her ability to strengthen the museum’s foundations, bringing equal parts visionary, strategic, and practical thinking…”
Lisa Funderburke “has infectious enthusiasm and energy, and we’re confident in her ability to strengthen the museum’s foundations, bringing equal parts visionary, strategic, and practical thinking…”
— NMOA Board Chair Peter Englot
Funderburke has a broad background across research, scholarship, governance, and strategy working with a variety of arts organizations for more than three decades, beginning her career at natural history and nature museums.
Most recently, she led the Artists Communities Alliance, an international association of artist residencies, for a decade (2016-26). On its website, ACA states Funderburke is the first Black woman to serve as executive director and that her hiring was “the board signaling that a change needed to happen within the organization and within the field itself. ACA could no longer idly witness from the sidelines the perpetuation of white body supremacy, but needed to embody and represent the diversity of artists within the artist residency field.”
Funderburke was named president and CEO of ACA in 2022. The organization operates remotely. Under her leadership, the staff grew to 13 and the annual budget reached $2.5 million, according to the New York Times.
Previously, Funderburke served as associate director of the McColl Center for Art + Innovation, an artist residency and contemporary art space in Charlotte, N.C. She directed what is now the Charlotte Museum of Nature for nearly a decade (2003-12). In an earlier role, she was a museum technician at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Funderburke graduated from Howard University with an undergraduate degree in botany and a master of science degree in biology.
With the appointment at the Newark Museum of Art, Funderburke becomes one of the few Black directors at a mainstream art museum in the United States. She is joining the ranks of Franklin Sirmans at Florida’s Pérez Art Museum Miami; Brooke A. Minto at Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio; and Belinda Tate at Indiana’s Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.
The small group was significantly reduced with the departures of Sandra Jackson-Dumont at the forthcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles (April 2025) and Andrea Barnwell Brownlee from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Fla. (May 2025).
“I am excited to work with the Newark community and broader networks of artists and partners to position the museum as a leader in national and global conversations about art, science, and cultural exchange.”
— Lisa Funderburke
In 2023, “Apollo (Diptych)” (2023), two marble busts by Sanford Biggers, were installed on either side of The Washington Street entrance to the Newark Museum of Art’s main building. | Courtesy NMOA
Founded in 1909, the Newark Museum of Art boast a collection of more than 300,000 objects, including 130,000 artworks and about 170,000 science and natural history artifacts. The museum campus features a historic Old Stone School House; Alice Ransom Dreyfuss Memorial Garden; Ballantine House, an 1885 mansion annexed to the museum; and Dreyfuss Planetarium.
Current exhibitions at the museum include “Aminah Robinson: Journeys Home, A Visual Memoir.” Among its many events and programs, NMOA hosts the annual Newark Black Film Festival, the longest-running Black film festival in the United States.
NMOA has about 150 employees, a budget of $15 million (with two-thirds provided by the city and state), and a $48.5 million endowment. The museum receives more than 100,000 visitors annually.
Last year, NMOA embarked on a transformative, nearly $100 million construction project with the city of Newark involving nearly 4.5 acres. Scheduled to be completed in 2027, Museum Parc is a mixed-use reimagining of the museum campus, including renovation of the Learning and Engagement Center and the introduction of new gallery space, more welcoming and accessible grounds, a sculpture garden, public art, and 250 market-rate and affordable apartments.
Funderburke is joining NMOA at a critical moment when the institution’s deep commitment to the city is expected to raise the museum’s profile and expand its cultural impact.
“Museums are most vital when they are responsive, collaborative, and deeply connected to the communities they serve,” Funderburke said in a statement. “Throughout my career, I have seen how cultural institutions function as essential civic infrastructure. I am excited to work with the Newark community and broader networks of artists and partners to position the museum as a leader in national and global conversations about art, science, and cultural exchange—stewarding the museum as a shared public space for learning, creativity, and dialogue.” CT
Rendering: Newark Museum of Art’s Museum Parc campus transformation project is expected to be completed in 2027. | Courtesy NMOA
BOOKSHELF
“Raggin’ On: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson’s House and Journals” was published on the occasion of a major exhibition of the artist at the Columbus Museum of Art. “Seeing America: The Arc of Abstraction” was published to coincide with the Newark Museum of Art’s reinstallation of its 20th and 21st century collection galleries. Also consider, “Arts of Global Africa: The Newark Museum Collection” and “Newark Museum of Art (Images of America).” Co-edited by Lisa Melandri and Naomi Beckwith, “Sanford Biggers” is the first publication to document the artist’s BAM series, including sculpture, video, and quilt paintings that memorialize and pay homage to Black victims of gun violence at the hand of police. The catalog accompanied Sanford Biggers’s 2019 solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
