Blanton Curator Veronica Roberts Leaves Texas for Directorship at Stanford

The Stanford News recently announced that Veronica Roberts, who currently serves as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, will be the new director of the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.

Veronica Roberts. Image credit: Manny Alcalá

Ms. Roberts joined the Blanton in 2013, and in her time at the institution she curated the nationally touring exhibitions Nina Katchadourian: Curiouser and Converging Lines: Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt. Over the last nine years she also curated exhibitions of works Vincent Valdez, Donald Moffett, and Charles White, among others. In conjunction with the museum’s 2019 Charles White exhibition, Ms. Roberts edited the exhibition catalog Charles White: The Gordon Gift to the University of Texas. Notably, she also worked closely with Ellsworth Kelly to bring plans for the artist’s building, Austin, to fruition. 

Additionally, in 2017, Ms. Roberts oversaw a reinstallation of the Blanton’s renovated permanent modern and contemporary galleries, which focused on highlighting artworks by women and artists of color. Recently, she organized Assembly: New Acquisitions by Contemporary Black Artists (which is on view through May 8).

In the article by Stanford News, the university’s newly appointed vice president for the arts, Deborah Cullinan, said, “I am delighted that Veronica Roberts will join Stanford arts leadership as the new director of the Cantor. She brings a deep connection to her hometown Bay Area region and a solid reputation as a collaborative and generous leader. She is eager to lead the development of a new strategic vision for the Cantor that invigorates and amplifies the role that an art museum can play in its campus community, its region and its field.”

Of her new position, Ms. Roberts stated, “I am thrilled to be returning to the Bay Area and to a museum I visited countless times with my grandmother, who volunteered for the Cantor. I look forward to sharing the work of many of the most exciting regional, national and international artists working today at the museum and working with the campus, communities across the Bay Area and a global network of alumni supporters to ensure that the Cantor remains an integral part of the intellectual lives of students, faculty, staff and museum visitors.”

Ms. Roberts will begin her new position as the John and Jill Freidenrich Director at the Cantor Arts Center on July 5, 2022.