American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915

H. Barbara Weinberg has been Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum since 1990 and was elected the Alice Pratt Brown Curator in 1998. In addition to American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915, she has organized or co-organized the major loan exhibitions American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, 1885–1915 (1994); Childe Hassam, American Impressionist (2004); and Americans in Paris, 1860–1900 (2006). She was the Metropolitan’s curator for Winslow Homer (1996; organized by the National Gallery of Art) and Thomas Eakins (2002; organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art). She was curator of several exhibitions based on the Metropolitan’s collections, including John Singer Sargent Beyond the Portrait Studio (2000), American Impressionists Abroad and At Home (American Federation of Arts, 2001–02), and American Impressionism and Realism: A Landmark Exhibition from the Met (Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, and Art Exhibitions Australia, 2009).

A native of New York City, she graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College/Columbia University, New York, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University. From 1972 to 1990 she was a professor of Art History at Queens College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York; she is now Professor Emerita. She has written numerous Metropolitan Museum catalogues, independent books, articles, and essays, and has received honors that include the 2007 Lawrence A. Fleischman Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.