Buffalo, NY – Today the Albright-Knox announced the appointment of Julia M. Vázquez for a two-year curatorial fellowship. While Vázquez will participate fully in the museum’s Curatorial Department, her primary responsibility will be to assist with a major exhibition and larger research initiative dedicated to the work of Marisol (María Sol Escobar, Venezuelan and American, born France, 1930–2016).

On her death in 2016, Marisol bequeathed her estate to the Albright-Knox. Spanning the entirety of her sixty-year career, the bequest includes more than 100 sculptures and three-dimensional studies, hundreds of works on paper, and thousands of photographs and slides, among other materials. With this bequest, the Albright-Knox holds the world’s most significant collection of Marisol’s work and is able to present a uniquely rich perspective on this pioneering artist.

The Albright-Knox was the first museum to formally acquire Marisol’s work, having purchased the sculptures The Generals, 1961–62, from her solo show at the Stable Gallery in 1962, and Baby Girl, 1963, in 1964. Marisol developed an enduring respect for the Albright-Knox and people associated with it, including the museum’s patron Seymour H. Knox, Jr., and Buffalo native Sidney Janis, her longtime friend and her dealer from 1966 until his death in 1989. Marisol’s decision to bequeath her estate to the Albright-Knox is a testament to her belief in the importance of art museums. The commitment of the Albright-Knox to Marisol’s work at an early stage in her career is characteristic of the museum, which became known in the 1950s for its farsighted collecting, a philosophy that continues to this day.

Julia Vázquez is a specialist in the history of art of the Spanish-speaking world and brings significant experience in research and exhibition development to the position. Her previous museum work includes internships and fellowships at the Musée du Louvre; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museo Nacional del Prado; the National Gallery of Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Collezione Peggy Guggenheim; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 2017, she curated the exhibition Picasso’s “Dream and Lie of Franco:” The Spanish Civil War in Print for the Meadows Museum in Dallas. She has provided curatorial support for numerous museum exhibitions on subjects such as Carmen Herrera, Gego, Lygia Clark, and the Surrealists, including Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Frida Kahlo. Earlier this year, she completed a Ph.D. in art history and archaeology at Columbia University, where she wrote a doctoral dissertation titled “The Artist as Curator: Diego Velázquez, 1623–1660.” She previously received her B.A. in the history of art and architecture from Brown University.

Holly E. Hughes Promotion

The Albright-Knox also announced that Holly E. Hughes, previously Godin-Spaulding Curator and Curator for the Collection, has been promoted to Godin-Spaulding Senior Curator for the Collection.

Hughes joined the Albright-Knox’s Curatorial department in 1998 and since then has organized a great many exhibitions drawn from the museum’s collection while also working with contemporary artists on site-specific installations at the museum. Most recently she organized B. Ingrid Olson: Forehead and Brain (2018), the artist’s first solo museum presentation, as well as collection-based exhibitions such as Giant Steps: Artists and the 1960s (2018); Matisse and the Art of Jazz (2018); Drawing: The Beginning of Everything (2017); and Picasso: The Artist and His Models (2016–17).

Past projects with the Albright-Knox include the exhibitions Videosphere: A New Generation (2011); Sweet Dreams, Baby! Life of Pop, London to Warhol (2013); Kelly Richardson: Legion (2013); One Another: Spiderlike, I Spin Mirrors (2014); andTorey Thornton: Sir Veil (2016). From 2003 to 2005, Hughes served as the museum’s project director for The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art (2005), a monumental exhibition that marked the first collaboration between American art museums and a major Chinese art institution.

Hughes holds undergraduate degrees in fine art, with a concentration in photography and art history from Buffalo State College, and a master’s degree with a major concentration in contemporary art and a minor concentration in Indigenous art from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

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