Dorothy Kosinski

Dorothy M. Kosinski is an American scholar of nineteenth and twentieth-century art, curator and the former director (2008--2023) of The Phillips Collection, an art museum in Washington, D. C.

Kosinski was born in Meriden, Connecticut, into a Catholic family^[1] and grew up in Wallingford, Connecticut, and got her BA from Yale University and her MA and PhD degrees from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.^[2] After being an intern and curatorial assistant at the Guggenheim Museum, she became a curator for the Bruce Museum^[3] in Greenwich, Connecticut, and, from 1985 to 1997,^[4] for the private collection of cubist art left by Douglas Cooper^[5] in Basel, Switzerland.^[6] From 1995 to 2008, she worked at the Dallas Museum of Art, where she worked in different capacities before she eventually^[4] became senior curator of painting and sculpture, then was appointed director at The Phillips Collection,^[5] where she succeed Jay Gates.^[7] She was also an independent curator for the National Gallery in Prague,^[4] the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg,^[8] the Kunstmuseum Basel,^[4] and the Royal Academy of Arts.^[5] Her experience amounts to over 30 exhibitions.^[9]

Kosinski has published on artists including Gustave Courbet,^[10] Henri Matisse,^[11] and Vincent van Gogh^[12] and on various topics in nineteenth and twentieth-century art.^[13] Her book "Matisse: Painter as Sculptor" was among "The best books of 2007" listed by the Financial Times.^[14] In total, Kosinski can look back on over 35 publications.^[15] As an expert of nineteenth and twentieth-century art Kosinski has been quoted by the New York Times^[16][17] and the Washington Post.^[18][19]

President Obama appointed her in 2012 to the National Council on the Humanities, an advisory council to the National Endowment for the Humanities.^[20] In December 2017 Kosinski was awarded the Order of the Star of Italy for her "outstanding contributions to the arts and promotion of Italian culture".^[21]

She is a member of the US-China Forum on the Arts and Culture.^[6] She is also director of the Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation^[22] and of the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, as well as a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors.^[4]

Kosinski is married to the Swiss-born architect Thomas Krahenbuhl. They have one daughter.^[1]

• 1987: Douglas Cooper Und Die Meister Des Kubismus and the Masters of Cubism, Univ of Washington Pr, ISBN 9783720400527
• 1990: Picasso, Braque, Gris, Leger: Douglas Cooper Collecting Cubism, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, ISBN 9780890900499
• 1994: Fernand Leger 1911-1924: The Rhythm of Modern Life (Art & Design), Prestel Pub, ISBN 9783791313726
• 1999: The Artist and the Camera, Yale University Press, ISBN 9780300081688
• 2001: Henry Moore, Yale University Press, ISBN 9780300089929
• 2005: Dialogues, Yale University Press, ISBN 9780300109269
• 2006: Van Gogh's Sheaves of Wheat, Yale University Press, ISBN 9780300117721
• 2007: Matisse, Yale University Press, ISBN 9780300115413
• 2012: Per Kirkeby, Yale University Press, ISBN 9780300181227
• 2013: Angels, Demons, and Savages, Yale University Press, ISBN 9780300186482
• 2013: Giorgio de Chirico: Myth and Archaeology, Silvana Editorale, ISBN 9788836626274
• 2013: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at the Dallas Museum of Art: The Richard R. Brettell Lecture Series, Dallas Museum of Art, ISBN 9780300187571
• 2015: Gauguin to Picasso, Masterworks from Switzerland: The Staechelin & Im Obersteg Collections, GILES, ISBN 9781907804601
• 2017: Markus Lüpertz, Sieveking, ISBN 9783944874593
• 2020: Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, Rizzoli Electa, ISBN 9780847866649

• Kosinski at The Phillips Collection website