New Assistant Curator Joins the Ringling Museum Team
Sarasota, FL – January 11, 2008 – The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is pleased to announce that Dr. Virginia Brilliant will join the professional staff of the Museum as Assistant Curator of European Art on Feb. 13, 2008.
“Dr. Brilliant brings excellent academic and research credentials to her post at the Ringling at a time when our museum is expanding, bringing in more diverse exhibitions as well as producing important exhibitions for presentation in Sarasota and across the country.” said Dr. Stephen Borys, Ulla R. Searing Curator of Collections at the Ringling Museum. “Virginia’s recent exhibition work at the Cleveland Museum of Art and at the Getty Museum has prepared her well for some of the exciting challenges she will face at the Ringling, and I feel certain we will all benefit from her outstanding scholarship and curatorial vision.”
Dr. Brilliant’s experience includes work at museums in the U.S. and Europe. She held graduate internship positions with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles as well as the Sir John Soane Museum and the British Museum in London. In 2006, Brilliant joined the Cleveland Museum of Art as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Medieval Art specializing in Italian Renaissance Art of the 14th and 15th centuries. Brilliant has also published on a wide variety of art historical topics.
She earned her Ph.D. in 2005 and M.A. in 2001 from the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London. In 2000, Brilliant received her B.A. in History and History of Art from University College London, University of London.
The Ringling Museum’s curatorial department, under the direction of Dr. Borys, oversees the art collections and exhibitions at the Ringling Museum of Art and the Cà d’Zan Mansion. In the past year, the 21 permanent collection galleries of the Museum of Art were reinstalled and reinterpreted, which included the launch of an iPod audio tour and the publication of a new Guide to the Collections (to be released Spring 2008). The new Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Wing opened in February 2007, and is used for the presentation of temporary exhibitions from around the world. Highlights of the Museum’s renowned collection of Old Master paintings include important works by Cranach, Rubens, Hals, Titian, Veronese, Giordano, Poussin, Bourdon, Velázquez and El Greco.
Dr. Brilliant will be involved in the ongoing research and publishing of the permanent collection, including the planning and production of additional didactic materials and programs for the galleries. She will also be working on different exhibition projects, planned for the next five years, and will take an active role in the Ringling Museum’s important relationship to and its partnerships with other university art museums.
The exhibitions Grandma Moses: Grandmother to the Nation and Jacob Lawrence: Three Series of Prints will open on January 26, 2008 in the Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Wing.