Robinson named interim director of Palmer Museum of Art

Joyce Henri Robinson has been named interim director of the Palmer Museum of Art, effective Dec. 1. She has been a curator at the Palmer since 1997 and has served as assistant director since 2018. Erin M. Coe, director since 2017, is stepping down to become the executive director of the Rockwell Museum (a Smithsonian Affiliate) in Corning, New York. A national search will be launched for a new permanent director.

“The Palmer has been my home base for nearly three decades, and I’m excited to work with our remarkable staff during this period of transition,” said Robinson. “In our new home in the Arboretum, we will continue to welcome record numbers of visitors, engage community members and foster meaningful encounters with art for students, faculty and staff across campus.”

During her nearly 30-year tenure at the Palmer, Robinson has organized more than 75 exhibitions and authored exhibition catalogues primarily in the fields of contemporary art, photography, American art and studio glass. She was part of the multidisciplinary curatorial team behind the popular Plastic Entanglements: Ecology, Aesthetics, Materials (2018), which traveled to three academic museums across the country. Other collaborative projects she spearheaded include Field Language: The Painting and Poetry of Warren and Jane Rohrer (2021), co-curated with faculty from the College of the Liberal Arts, and Global Asias, guest-curated by Penn State Art History faculty member Chang Tan in partnership with the Global Asias Initiative, which also traveled to several venues across the country. Most recently, she co-curated with Erin Coe the inaugural special exhibition for the new Palmer Museum of Art, MADE IN PA.

According to B. Stephen Carpenter II, Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture, Robinson will provide exemplary leadership during a time of transition.

“With her long and impressive history at the Palmer, Joyce is uniquely prepared to guide the museum as it builds on its success at the new location,” said Carpenter. “She has been integral to many of the museum’s accomplishments over the years and will now play a key role during this transitional period.”

Robinson has also served as in-house curator for numerous major traveling exhibitions on a wide range of topics, from Indian miniature painting to Chinese tomb sculpture to the work of contemporary artists such as Judy Chicago and Lesley Dill.

She has published articles and presented papers on topics including contemporary art, African American art, Matisse and decoration, 19th-century French art and Thomas Jefferson’s collection at Monticello. Her publications have appeared in Museum News, Winterthur Portfolio, New Art Examiner and International Review of African American Art, among others. Her essays have also been published in several anthologies.

Robinson has been active in the community as president of the Board of Directors of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, ongoing member of the Schlow Library gallery committee, occasional juror for regional art exhibitions and volunteer pledge host for WPSU-TV and WPSU-Radio. She received the College of Arts and Architecture’s Staff Award for Outstanding Service in 2009 and the Staff Sustainability Award in 2024.

She earned her Ph.D. in 19th- and 20th-century European and American art at the University of Virginia, and has taught at Kenyon College, Davidson College, the American University in Paris, the University of Virginia and Penn State, where she is an affiliate associate professor in the Department of Art History.