Palmer Museum of Art announces next curator of American art

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Janine Yorimoto Boldt has been named new curator of American art at the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State, effective Jan. 2, 2026. 

Boldt comes to the Palmer Museum in the College of Arts and Architecture having served as associate curator of American art and collection reinstallation project associate at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2021. She earned doctoral and master’s degrees in American Studies from William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia; and a bachelor's degree in history and art history from Michigan State University in East Lansing. She was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation postdoctoral curatorial fellow at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia from July 2018 through December 2020. Boldt has also secured fellowships with the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Virginia Historical Society, Winterthur Museum and Library, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 

“We are so pleased to welcome Janine to the Palmer staff,” said Interim Director Joyce Robinson. “Her considerable scholarship is informed by an interdisciplinary background and a commitment to using art to creatively tell inclusive histories.” 

Boldt has curated exhibitions for the American Philosophical Society, the Michigan Women’s Historical Center and Hall of Fame, and the Chazen, including serving on the curatorial team behind the critically acclaimed "re:mancipation" project in 2023. 

Her scholarly articles have appeared in "Winterthur Portfolio," "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society" and "American Art," as well as in numerous anthologies. She is the creative force behind Colonial Virginia Portraits, an interactive database featuring more than 500 portraits associated with colonial Virginia. She is currently authoring a book based on her dissertation titled "The Politics of Portraiture in Colonial Virginia." 

“The Palmer Museum at Penn State is the perfect place to embark on the next phase of my career, and I look forward to contributing to the museum at this exciting moment following its reopening,” Boldt said. “I look forward to collaborating with colleagues and community members to find innovative ways to activate collections and engage visitors in object-based learning.” 

Boldt's arrival coincides with the advent of the country’s 250th anniversary year. Among her initial projects will be the reinstallation of the museum’s permanent collection galleries of American art and serving as a juror for an invitational exhibition celebrating artists across campus and the community. 

“Janine is the ideal curator-scholar to steward the Palmer’s world-renowned collection of American art,” Robinson said. “Her object-focused methodology encompassing diverse media, time periods and geographies — and her desire to interface with a broad range of constituents — made her the quintessential candidate for this vitally important position.” 

The art of the United States is a notable strength of the Palmer Museum of Art. American paintings from the late 18th and 19th centuries include concentrations in Colonial and Early Republic portraiture, Hudson River School landscapes, genre scenes and still lifes from before and after the Civil War, and figural subjects by expatriates and impressionists around 1900. The early decades of the 20th century are well represented with important canvases by Pennsylvania (New Hope) impressionists, urban realist scenes by Ashcan School artists and signature works by modernists like Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe and Joseph Stella. The varied subjects and styles of American Scene painting of the 1930s and 1940s are amply represented. The John Driscoll American Drawings Collection, gifted in 2019, includes 140 works on paper and spans more than 150 years of American art history from 1795 to 1950. 

About the Palmer Museum of Art 

 

The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State is the largest art museum collection between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and the most significant academic art museum in the state of Pennsylvania. A key element of Penn State’s land-grant mission of teaching, research and public service, the museum is a vital and accessible cultural resource for Penn State’s students, faculty and scholars, as well as for all visitors to and from the entire central Pennsylvania region. Through its world-class objects, programs and outreach, the free museum is a welcoming, inclusive and vibrant forum for authentic arts experiences and cultivates meaningful dialogue about today’s most potent ideas and pressing concerns. 

 

An expansive 21st-century teaching museum, the Palmer Museum of Art is a beacon for advancing the arts and humanities on Penn State’s University Park campus and throughout its diverse communities. The Palmer is dedicated to catalyzing groundbreaking research, scholarship and publications and providing impactful, object-based learning for Penn State and K-12 students. The Palmer’s rewarding and thought-provoking exhibitions and programs promote visitor participation, belonging and discovery. In January, the Palmer was voted one of ten winners in the national USA Today 10Best contest for Best New Museums of 2025.