European and American Art before 1900

Angelica Daneo, Chief Curator and Curator of European Art before 1900

A native Italian, Angelica Daneo is Chief Curator and Curator of European Art before 1900. Her experience includes posts at the Smithsonian Institution and the Saint Louis Art Museum. Among her projects, Daneo curated Cities of Splendor: A Journey Through Renaissance Italy; Court to Café: Three Centuries of French Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum, and Drawing Room: An Intimate Look at French Drawings from the Esmond Bradley Martin Collection. She was the organizing curator of Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance in 2016 and co-curated Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature in 2019. She is the author of The Kress Collection at the Denver Art Museum and the Companion to European Painting before 1800. She is editor and author of the exhibition catalog Glory of Venice and the co-editor and author of the exhibition catalog Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature. Growing up in Italy close to the French border, she developed a passion for Italian Renaissance art and French Impressionism, which are the focus of her research.

Emily Willkom, Senior Curatorial Assistant

Emily Willkom is the Senior Curatorial Assistant for European and American Art before 1900. Since receiving her master's in museum studies in 2009 from the University of Leicester, Willkom has held a variety of museum positions, including building coordinator at Philbrook Downtown, a Philbrook Museum of Art satellite location housing part of the Eugene B. Adkins collection; exhibitions and publications assistant at the Gilcrease Museum; and curatorial and preparatory assistant at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Since joining the DAM's curatorial team in 2015, Willkom has worked on several major exhibitions including Wyeth: Andrew and Jamie in the Studio, Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance, Rembrandt: Painter as Printmaker, Degas: A Passion for Perfection, and Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature.

Lauren Thompson, Senior Interpretive Specialist

Lauren Thompson is Senior Interpretive Specialist for European and American Art before 1900 and for Western American Art at the Denver Art Museum, where she has been interpretation lead on Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance, Degas: A Passion for Perfection, and Natural Forces: Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington, among other exhibitions. Prior to coming to the DAM, she served as director of programs at the Ann Arbor Art Center, and worked at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston where she was named Museum Educator of the Year in 2011 by the Texas Art Education Association. Lauren received her bachelor's in art history and communication from Trinity University and her master's in art history from the University of Denver.

The department of European and American Art before 1900, as it is now known, started as two distinct departments in 1947, consisting of Mediterranean and European art, and American art. After little to no change in the structure of the curatorial departments for the following 40 years, in 1989 then-newly appointed director, Lewis I. Sharp urged a reorganization of the curatorial division. This resulted in the formation of a separate modern and contemporary department, now caring for artworks created after 1945, while a newly formed painting and sculpture department was charged with stewarding European and American art, from Antiquities to collections created prior to 1945. Most recently, in 2019, to better reflect the nature of the collections, the department was renamed European and American Art before 1900.

Throughout the decades, a number of curators and scholars have contributed to shape the department’s collections, exhibitions and publications. The Denver Art Museum would not be where it is without their thoughtful leadership and expertise. Past curators include, most recently, Dr. Timothy J. Standring, our longstanding Gates Family Foundation Curator, Berger Collection Curator and department head from 1989 to 2020: his long and successful tenure is reflected in the numerous groundbreaking exhibitions, scholarly publications and acquisitions he spearheaded. Kathleen Stuart, our Berger Collection Curator from 2007 to 2019; Ann Daley, our American art curator and associate curator for the Petrie Institute of Western art from 1977 to 2001; Lauretta Dimmick, the first Gates Foundation Curator and curator of American art from 1990 to 1997; David Park Curry, curator of American art from 1983 to 1989; and (Claire) Cameron Wolfe, associate curator of European art from 1973 to 1984. The department is currently led by Angelica Daneo, chief curator and curator of European art before 1900.