Assistant Curator, Houghton Library at Harvard, (Cambridge, MA)
Posted May 17, 2023
Houghton Library seeks an Assistant Curator to support managing, building and sharing the Library’s Printing and Graphic Arts (P&GA) collection. Reporting to the Curator of Printing and Graphic Arts, the Assistant Curator performs a range of administrative, outreach, collection-development, and book-arts functions. Part of a highly visible and active department, the Assistant Curator collaborates with all areas of the Library including Public Services, Technical Services, Public and Scholarly Programs, and other curatorial departments.
The successful candidate will possess strong subject knowledge in at least one area of strength in the P&GA collection, and will, ideally, also bring expertise in an area of printing and graphic arts outside of the collection’s current strengths. The successful candidate will also possess the capacity to master over time the broad range of formats, subjects, and time periods represented in the P&GA collection, and the flexibility required to develop facility in the numerous skillsets used in curatorial work.
The Department of Printing and Graphic Arts was founded in 1938 by legendary curator, collector, and connoisseur Philip Hofer. The department holds original artifacts from all periods illustrating the book arts and the materiality and historical development of the book, whether manuscript or printed. Its strengths reside mainly in European and American traditions of manuscript and printed book illustration, printing technologies, typography, calligraphy, book design, and early photography. In addition to facilitating teaching and research based in the collection, the department administers a vibrant set of programs including the Frances and Philip Hofer lecture series, the Philip Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art, workshops on letterpress printing, and other activities core to the department’s mission and spirit.
The Assistant Curator will be an active participant in the department’s wide-ranging work, including P&GA’s core initiatives:
- increasing the collection’s visibility online and in the Harvard community
- expanding the P&GA printing studio operations and programming
- diversifying the collection by acquiring materials in underrepresented areas, including works by creators from underrepresented communities and geographical regions, examples of lesser-known and underground print technologies, and artifacts of printing and graphic arts influenced by digital technologies
Houghton Library has recently joined with the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, Fine Arts Library, Harvard Film Archive, and Harvard University Archives to create Archives, Arts, and Special Collections of Harvard Library, a new administrative unit currently planning integrated approaches to public services and technical services for archives and special collections across the portfolio.
How to Apply
To view the complete position description and to apply, see here.