David C. Driskell Prize Conversation: Naomi Beckwith

Naomi Beckwith is a curator and scholar who lives and works in New York. Beckwith’s work centers on exploring the influence of Black identity and culture on the multidisciplinary practices of global contemporary artists. Through her curatorial projects and scholarship, she champions Black artists and their contributions to the field. She has curated and organized or co-organized such exhibitions as Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2018), Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Any Number of Preoccupations (Studio Museum in Harlem, 2011), and 30 Seconds off an Inch (Studio Museum in Harlem, 2009–2010). Beckwith also oversees the dynamic exhibition program and collections policy for four international museums, including the permanent holdings of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York and Venice) and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. She holds a Master of Arts, with Distinction, from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and was a Critical Studies Fellow in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Katherine “Katie” Jentleson, PhD, is Senior Curator of American Art and the Merrie and Dan Boone Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art at the High Museum of Art. Since joining the High in 2015, she has curated ten exhibitions, including Patterns in Abstraction: Black Quilts from the High’s Collection and George Voronovsky: Memoryscapes. Her exhibitions and publications have been awarded major support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Art Bridges Foundation, the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Jentleson has grown the High’s internationally renowned Folk and Self-Taught Art collection by more than six hundred objects, including major acquisitions of works by Voronovsky, Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, the Gee’s Bend quilters, and Henry Church. She holds a BA from Cornell University and a PhD in art history from Duke University.