- Art Curator, Researcher, and Consultant
- B.A, Art History | Sweet Briar College, 2017
- M.A., Art History | Lindenwood University, 2022
The humanities way of life, says Caroline Haller, “is to wear lots of hats.” An art history major at Sweet Briar, the 2017 graduate now represents artists, brokers the sale of art, researches the provenance of paintings, and designs exhibits. Rather than work at a museum, she divides her work among an art gallery and individual artists who need her curation skills. “I take on all sorts of projects, really anything that’s related to art history.”
The humanities way of life, says Caroline Haller, “is to wear lots of hats.” An art history major at Sweet Briar, the 2017 graduate now represents artists, brokers the sale of art, researches the provenance of paintings, and designs exhibits.
Rather than work at a museum, she divides her work among an art gallery and individual artists who need her curation skills. “I take on all sorts of projects, really anything that’s related to art history.”
At Sweet Briar, her specialty was 19th Century art, and she was especially intrigued with folding hand fans. Caroline wrote her senior thesis about fans and the connections in the artform across France, English and Spain. The discipline of writing a thesis helped her when she pursued her master’s degree, focused on an autographed folding fan called the Walter Crane Fan. While working on her advanced degree, she interned at the North Carolina Museum of Art and helped with the re-installation of the state’s collection.
With no full-time museum jobs available after she finished her graduate work, Caroline had to “pivot and create opportunities for myself,” she says. She started Caroline Haller Curation, advertising on her website and on a freelance site called UpWork. Since then, she has written art reviews and helped create materials for teaching art history to children. Caroline represents artists, helping promote their work in social media and in galleries. She brokered sales of pieces of art by Dr. Seuss and Charles Schultz. A new client, whose grandmother created about 150 abstract paintings, has asked Caroline to curate the work, sell a few pieces and create a coffee table book.
Recently, she joined The ArtCenter in nearby Carrboro, North Carolina, as its gallery coordinator. The center moved into a new building in August 2023 that has 1,800 square feet of exhibition space she’s helping to fill.
“It’s a great opportunity to showcase my curatorial skills while engaging the diverse community of artists in the Triangle,” Caroline says. She knows exactly what she wants to do with the space: Working with the Hand Fan Association of North America and some local collectors, she’s going to host an exhibition of hand fans.