The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has announced several key appointments within its Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Leslie Cozzi has been promoted to Department Head, following her tenure as Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Olivia Dill will join the department as Assistant Curator in October. Robin Owen Joyce has also been promoted to the newly created position of Assistant Curator of Academic Engagement.
Leslie Cozzi began her work at the BMA in 2018 as Associate Curator. Since then, she has curated or co-curated seven exhibitions over four years. These include “Slavery, The Prison Industrial Complex: Photographs by Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick,” “Zackary Drucker: Icons,” “A Modern Influence: Henri Matisse, Etta Cone, and Baltimore” (with Katy Rothkopf), “Valerie Maynard: Lost and Found” (with Asma Naeem), and “SHAN Wallace: 410” (with Cecilia Wichmann). In 2022, she was named Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs and co-curated “Darrel Ellis: Regeneration,” a traveling exhibition recognized as the first comprehensive museum presentation of Darrel Ellis’s work. She also curated “Omar Ba: Political Animals,” which was the first solo U.S. museum exhibition for Senegalese-born artist Omar Ba; more recently she organized “Matsumi Kanemitsu: Figure and Fantasy,” focusing on early works by Kanemitsu.
Cozzi’s efforts have led to the acquisition of 392 new works for the museum’s collection ranging from around 1641 to today. She has contributed to building partnerships with local institutions such as Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and helped establish the Valerie J. Maynard Internship at the BMA.
Kevin Tervala, BMA Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator said, “As her impressive record shows, Leslie is a curator who brings extraordinary dedication to the BMA’s principles of artistic excellence, local and global relevance, and engaged community partnerships,” adding that he and BMA director Asma Naeem are excited about Cozzi’s new leadership role.
Robin Owen Joyce steps into his new role after serving as Getty Paper Project Fellow in Prints, Drawings, and Photographs from 2022–2024 where he co-curated “Art/Work: Women Printmakers of the WPA” with Virginia Anderson. His upcoming project is titled “Deconstructing Nature: Environmental Transformation in the Lucas Collection,” which will explore environmental themes within nineteenth-century prints and drawings held by the museum.
Olivia Dill comes from her recent post as Moore Curatorial Fellow at Morgan Library & Museum where she curated two exhibitions focused on natural history drawings; this included organizing a graduate seminar called Drawing Nature, 1500-1900 with Sarah Mallory and Roberta Olson. Dill previously held fellowships at both The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Art Institute of Chicago in works on paper conservation departments. She recently received the Ricciardi Prize from Master Drawings journal for best article on a drawing topic by an under-40 scholar.
Founded in 1914, the Baltimore Museum of Art houses more than 97,000 objects across eras including what it describes as one of America’s finest collections in prints, drawings, photographs—and holds what it says is the world’s largest public holding of works by Henri Matisse.
