Glenn Adamson
Glenn Adamson is an American curator, author, and historian whose work focuses on design, craft, and contemporary art. He has been director of the Museum of Arts and Design, head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a curator at the Chipstone Foundation.
He is Curator at Large at the Vitra Design Museum, Artistic Director of Design Doha, a founding editor of Journal of Modern Craft, and since 2024, the curatorial director of Design Miami.
Early life and education
Glenn Adamson was born in 1972 and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, along with his identical twin brother Peter Adamson. He earned his B.A. in History of Art from Cornell University in 1994 and his PhD in Art History from Yale University in 2001.Museum and curatorial work
Museum of Arts and Design
From 2013 to 2016 Glenn Adamson served as the Nanette L. Laitman Director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. In 2016, when he stepped down from his post as Director at the Museum of Arts and Design, the museum stated:"During his tenure, Dr. Adamson led the institution through a period of significant growth of its programming and resources, and built a new leadership team. Dr. Adamson spearheaded an exhibitions program that explored and expanded MAD's unique mission and role in the arts ecology of New York and the nation, including NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial; Ralph Pucci: The Art of the Mannequin; Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft, and Design, Midcentury and Today; Wendell Castle Remastered; Studio Job: MAD HOUSE; and Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years. Dr. Adamson created the position of Windgate Research Curator, in collaboration with the Bard Graduate Center, to further enhance the scholarship of MAD's publications and exhibitions. He also expanded MAD's noted artist-in-residence program by engaging younger artists from traditionally under-represented communities, through an initiative funded by a grant from The New York Community Trust."
Victoria and Albert Museum
From 2005 to 2013 Glenn Adamson served as the head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum. During his time there, Adamson published several books and essays, as well as co-curated the exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990 along with Jane Pavitt. Adamson was also a key proponent in initiating the "Rapid Response Unit" of the V&A, where contemporary objects like 3D printed guns and "pussy hats" are added to the museum's collection quickly in direct response to contemporary culture.Chipstone Foundation
Glenn Adamson served as curator for the Chipstone Foundation from 2000 to 2005. The Chipstone Foundation focuses on the study, preservation, and championing of American material culture with heavy emphases on the decorative arts. This mission can be seen reflected in Adamson's work there, where he curated such historically American focused exhibitions as Skin Deep: Three Masters of American Inlay and Tea Table Coffee Table. In addition to his curatorial work, Adamson also made regular contributions to the Chipstone's journals American Furniture and Ceramics in America.Design Miami
Adamson is the curatorial director of Design Miami.Guest curatorial work
- 2003 Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
- 2013 fix fix fix, Gallery SO, London, UK
- 2017 Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT
- 2017 Static, Friedman Benda Gallery, New York City, NY
- 2017 Beazley Designs of the Year, Design Museum, London, UK
- 2018 Raw Design, Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA
- 2021 Crafting America, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
- 2023 Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth House, UK
- 2024 The New Transcendence, Friedman Benda Gallery, NY
- 2024 Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within, The Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, New York
- 2024 Nike: Form Follows Motion, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
Selected publications
Books
- A Century of Tomorrows
- Craft: An American History
- Fewer Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects
- The Invention of Craft
- The Craft Reader
- Thinking Through Craft
- ''Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World''
Book collaborations
- Creating Ourselves: The Self in Art
- Art in the Making: Artists and Their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing
- Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery
- Peter Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years
- Paul Evans: Crossing Boundaries and Crafting Modernism
- Surface tensions: Surface, finish and the meaning of objects
- Global Design History
- Postmodernism: Style and Subversion
- Hand + Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft
- ''Unpacking the Collection: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft''
Articles and essays
- Sculpture: An Art of Craft and Storytelling
- How Sheila Hicks Changed the Way We Think About Sculpture
- Gloria Kisch: A Career at the Crossroads of Art and Design
- Midlife Crisis on an Unlimited Budget: Marc Newson’s Furniture for the 1%
- A Young Designer's Pulpy and Surprisingly Personal Furniture
- Katherine Westphal, Fiber Art Pioneer, Dies at 99
- A Shrewd Designer Balances Craft and Commerce
- Great Estates: How Contemporary Ceramics Are Keeping Chatsworth Relevant
- Fallen Idylls
- The Future Starts Here: Jes Fan
- The Seamless Weaving of Fine Arts with Crafts
- Weaving Together the Story of a Forgotten Pop Artist and Her Rugs
- Normal Design
- Silver Spoons
- The Complexity Complex
- Demo Job: Craft, Art, and the Politics of Demonstration
- Summer Work: The Art of Pae White
- Issues & Commentary: Tsunami Africa
- The American Arcanum: Porcelain and the Alchemical Tradition
- Mannerism in Early American Furniture: Connoisseurship, Intention, and Theatricality
- The Politics of the Caned Chair
- ''The Furniture of Sam Maloof''