Aimee Ng


Aimee Ng is a Canadian art historian, curator, author, and podcaster. She is a specialist in Italian Renaissance art and currently serves as the Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator at The Frick Collection, in New York City. In that position, she replaced Xavier Salomon, who became the Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal.

Education

Ng graduated from the Queen's University at Kingston in 2005 with a BFA. She then moved to Manhattan to continue her studies, and she received her PhD in art history from the Columbia [University School of the Arts|Columbia University] in 2012.

Career

Prior to her curatorial career, she worked for the Morgan Library and Museum and was a lecturer on art history at Columbia University.
Her curatorial debut was as a guest curator of the exhibition "The Poetry of Parmigianino's 'Schava Turca at the Frick Collection in 2016. She was later appointed by the museum as an associate curator and subsequently as a curator.
Along with Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon, Ng oversaw the 2021 installation of the collection at the Frick Madison. She explained that the intention with the Frick Madison was to make use of the Brutalist architecture of the building, placing fewer objects on display than would be shown at the Henry [Clay Frick House].
She is a contributor to the journal The Brooklyn Rail, writing mainly about old-master paintings.

Cocktails with a Curator

From April 2020 to July 2021, Ng co-hosted the online program "Cocktails with a Curator" with chief curator Xavier F. Salomon, which examined artwork at the Frick. In this program, they provided virtual museum tours and lectures, while drinking cocktails. The [Wall Street Journal] characterized the program as "immensely popular" and "reaching an enormous audience".
The program ran for 66 episodes, which are available on YouTube. In 2021, Jason Farago of The New York Times wrote that their show "became appointment viewing at Friday martini hour". That same year, Cocktails with a Curator was named an Honoree in the 25th Annual Webby Awards from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for Best Virtual & Remote Experiences: Arts & Culture and jointly awarded a Global Fine Arts Award for Best Digital Exhibition or Online Education Program.
In 2022, the book Cocktails with a Curator, by Salomon with Ng and assistant curator of sculpture Giulio Dalvit, was published by Rizzoli Electra.
Ng also co-hosted "Travels with a Curator", which had 20 episodes and ran from April 2020 to September 2020. The episodes are also available on YouTube.

Publications