CONTRIBUTOR:

David W. Penney

AFFILIATION:

TITLE:

Associate Director

DEPARTMENT:

National Museum of the American Indian

INSTITUTION:

Smithsonian Institution

BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. David W. Penney is the Associate Director for Museum Scholarship at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. From 1980 to 2011, Dr. Penney worked at The Detroit Institute of Arts where he served as the Curator of Native American Art, Chief Curator (1996 – 2001) and Vice President of Exhibitions and Collections Strategies (2003 – 2011). He is the author of North American Indian Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004) and the organizing curator for several important exhibitions and their catalogues , notably Before and After the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes (National Museum of the American Indian and the Art Gallery of Ontario, 2013 – 2014); Art of the American Indian Frontier: The Chandler-Pohrt Collection (Detroit Institute of Arts and the National Gallery of Art, 1992 – 1994) and Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians (Detroit Institute of Arts and the National Gallery of Art 1984 – 1985). Dr. Penney has a doctorate in Art History from Columbia University, 1988.