- Assistant Curator, Sculpture & Decorative Arts Department, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- B.A., History of Art and Spanish | Sweet Briar College, 2000 (Kathryn Haw Prize in Art History)
- M.A., History of Art | The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2011
The National Gallery of Art is home to some 4,000 sculptures, pieces of antique furniture, porcelain, painted enamels and other objects of art. As assistant curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the Washington, D.C., museum, Emily Pegues shapes exhibitions and research works that date from 5th century BC to the Renaissance to the modern era.
The National Gallery of Art is home to some 4,000 sculptures, pieces of antique furniture, porcelain, painted enamels and other objects of art. As assistant curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the Washington, D.C., museum, Emily Pegues shapes exhibitions and research works that date from 5th century BC to the Renaissance to the modern era.
“Curate comes from the Latin word to care for, and that’s what we do, we care for the collection,” says Emily, Class of 2000. This care means cleaning, working with conservators to repair and protect the pieces from damage; in addition, researching how and where the art was created and sharing that story with the public.
The museum’s sculptures come in marble, wood, plaster, wax, bronze and terracotta, among other media. The collection also includes the world’s best collection of sculptures by Edgar Degas, hundreds of medals, rare Chinese porcelain, furniture from Louis XVI, and some Renaissance portraits on loan.
Emily traces her career’s launch to a retirement party for beloved Sweet Briar art history professor Aileen Laing, Class of 1957. There, Emily met an alumna, Lynn Rogerson Shirey, Class of 1976, who ran Art Services International, a nonprofit helping museums set up exhibitions: everything from identifying the pieces for display, negotiating the loan of art from museums, and packing and shipping the collection. Emily got a job at Art Services International researching and preparing the catalogues that would accompany exhibitions.
After a few years, she heard about an opening at the National Gallery’s education department and reached out to a Sweet Briar alumna working there, Lynn Pearson Russell, Class of 1969. Emily got the job and later moved down the hall to become a curatorial assistant in the sculpture and decorative arts department. She supported researchers, work that ranged from administrative tasks to traveling the world to accompanying art lent abroad and research.
Now, as assistant curator for the collection, Emily is assembling an exhibition of wooden sculptures, studying everything from the artistic styles to the properties of wood specific to the trees used to create the pieces. She’s also finishing her dissertation about a northern Renaissance wood carver. Recently, she conceived an initiative to commission nine of America’s best poets, including US Poet Laureate Ada Limón, to write original poems about works in the collection, and to premiere them in readings at a poetry festival at the Gallery.
Beyond the academic background and contacts she gained at Sweet Briar, Emily credits her professors—art history’s Ninie Laing, along with literature’s Lee Piepho and Karl Tamburr—with imbuing her with a passion for her work. “That is the legacy of Sweet Briar for me,” she says, “the common thread, such joy and curiosity and always wanting to learn more.”