Honorary Doctor
Renowned curator, critic, painter and writer, American-born Robert Storr is a tour de force among the art world.
He is a noted name and voice whose complementary disciplines have seen him work in roles across the spectrum: from senior curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York to Dean of Painting at the Yale School of Art to contributing editor for Art of America and Director of Visual Art of the Venice Biennale 2007 – the first American to assume the position.
Storr graduated in History and French from Swarthmore College in 1972 and gained an MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1978; he’d always had an interest in art, drawing and creating from a young age.
Working as a part-time professor after graduating, Storr took on arguably one of the most powerful jobs in the art world, working at MoMA from 1990 to 2002. While there he was responsible for organising, among others, the Gerhard Richter exhibition and the thematic shows Dislocations and Modern Art Despite Modernism.
In 2002 he was named the first Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and was appointed Dean of Painting at the Yale School of Art from 2006 to 2016, at which he is now Professor of Painting.
Published in Art in America (NY), Art Press (Paris) and Corriere della Sera (Milan) as well as the New York Times, Washington Post and Interview among others, he’s also written numerous books, catalogues and articles, but making work in his studio has always been his first love. And be it making a painting or making an exhibition, the common thread that runs through them both is the same: the personal satisfaction he finds in putting everything in its place.
Storr was presented with the medal of Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2016, a promotion from the rank of Chevalier he was awarded in 2001.