(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – Katy Kline, former director of Bowdoin College Museum of Art (1998-2008), has been named interim director of the Williams College Museum of Art. She will serve from early August until the permanent director is in place. Current director Lisa Corrin steps down from her position on June 30. Deputy director John Stomberg will oversee museum operations until he leaves at the end of July to begin his directorship of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum.
“I am happy to report the appointment as interim director of a highly experienced professional with ties to the museum, to the college, and to Williamstown,” Williams President Adam Falk said in an e-mail to campus.
At Bowdoin, Kline oversaw an award-winning renovation and expansion of the historic 1894 McKim, Mead and White building, as well as reaccreditation, exhibitions, and collection development.
Kline served earlier as curator and then director of the List Visual Arts Center at MIT, overseeing the contemporary art exhibition program and building the public art program. Kline has written extensively on modern and contemporary art in exhibition catalogues, collection catalogues, and for a variety of art periodicals. She co-organized the critically acclaimed installation by Ann Hamilton for the United States Pavilion at the 1998-99 Venice Biennale.
Kline has participated in institutional reviews for numerous museums, including those at Dartmouth, Amherst, and Grinnell colleges, and has served on NEA, NEH, and other funding panels, as well as fellowship, exhibition, award and other art panels around the country.
For three years Kline taught museum practices, policies, and issues in the Smith College Summer Institute of Art Museum Studies. She has her MA and BA in the history of art from Oberlin College.
Kline, a former resident of Williamstown, served on the WCMA Visiting Committee for two terms in the 1990s. Her father, Kermit Gordon, taught in the economics department at Williams and her son, Ethan Kline, is a member of the Williams Class of 1993.