Mary Schmidt Campbell

Mary Schmidt Campbell has been an institutional leader for over 40 years. From 2015 to 2022 she served as President of Spelman College in Atlanta Georgia. Prior to that position she was Executive Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem (1977-1987), where she organized several groundbreaking exhibitions, and produced catalogue essays of African American artists such as Melvin Edwards, Betye Saar, Jack Whitten, Barkley Hendricks, Richard Mayhew, Romare Bearden, and Sam Gilliam. As well, Campbell organized several landmark exhibitions including Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade (1985) and Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America (1987). After the Studio Museum, Campbell entered New York City government as the city’s Cultural Affairs Commissioner and served under two mayors. She continued her cultural leadership role as Dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she served for over two decades (1991-2014). During her tenure as Dean, President Barack Obama appointed her Vice-Chair of the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities in 2009.

Campbell’s award-winning biography, American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden (Oxford, 2018), remains the definitive account of the artist’s life and work. She continues to write and lecture frequently on art, culture and issues around higher education. Recently, she contributed to the anthology of essays, Are the Arts Essential? (NYU Press, 2022); Inventing the Modern: The Untold Stories of How Women Shaped the Museum of Modern Art, (MoMA 2024); and Sam Gilliam (Phaidon Press, 2024).