Museum gets new Chief Curator

     (PNAN-MT) – Sarah L. Burt becomes the new chief curator of the C.M. Russell Museum, located in Great Falls. Prior to her appointment, Burt comes from the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, where she was Richard and Mary Holland Curator of American Western Art and curator of American art.  “We are thrilled to have someone of Ms. Burt’s caliber joining the Russell Museum staff,” said Executive Director Darrell G. Beauchamp. “She has an incredible breadth and depth of knowledge and expertise from which to draw. I know she will be an excellent leader for the extraordinary permanent and temporary exhibitions here at the museum.”

     In her earlier career posts, Burt served for ten years as projects manager for the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she created an O’Keeffe oral history archive and the preparation of the National Historic Landmark nomination for the O’Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquiu. In addition with her position at the foundation, she worked as the researcher and cataloguer for William R. Talbot Fine Art, a retail gallery specializing in the art and history of the Transmississippi West.

      Burt also spent two years as the grants manager for Cornerstones Community Partnerships, a Santa Fe nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of historic adobe architecture in the Southwest, and has for twenty years offered her services as a freelance editor to art and cultural institutions nationwide. While in Omaha, she served on the mayor’s Landmarks Heritage Preservation Commission.

     Burt completed Ph.D. coursework and examinations in American Art History at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, from which she also earned a Master of Arts degree in Asian Art History and a Master of Science degree in Journalism. She also has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design and Art History from Wichita State University.

     The C. M. Russell Museum’s mission is to collect, preserve, research, interpret and educate on the art and life of Charles M. Russell; the art and life of his contemporaries; and the art of preceding and ensuing generations that depicts and focuses on the culture, life, and country of Russell’s West.