DENVER – April 10, 2026 – The Denver Art Museum (DAM) today announced the appointment of Royce K. Young Wolf, Ph.D., as Associate Curator of Native Arts. Dr. Young Wolf began her role at the DAM at the start of April.
“Celebrating Indigenous arts is a cornerstone of the work we do here at the DAM. As we step into the next century, holding one of our nation’s most compelling Indigenous arts collections, our institution needs profoundly impactful voices to continue that work,” said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the Denver Art Museum. “Royce K. Young Wolf’s appointment as Associate Curator of Native Arts ensures we continue serving our community in offering the most compelling and forward-thinking programs and presentations.”
Image courtesy of Royce K. Young Wolf.
Royce K. Young Wolf is an Eastern Shoshone, Hidatsa and Mandan mother, language and culture activist, curator and artist. She is a member of the Ih-dhi-shu-gah (Wide Ridge) Clan and is a child of the Ah-puh-gah-whi-gah (Low Cap) Clan and is an Apsáalooke (Crow), Nʉmʉnʉʉ (Comanche), Swampy Cree and Scottish descendant. She is a practitioner and advocate of the arts through her cultural works, photography, compositions and culturally responsive collection care and curatorial stewardship. Her advocacy work is inspired by her experiences of being a fourth-generation Indian boarding school survivor. Questions from that time influenced her early career shifts from film and media to focus on cultural and language preservation and revitalization.
She began her higher educational career in Denver as a graduate of George Washington High School, with film and video production training from the Career Education Center and the Colorado Film School. She earned her B.A. from Fort Lewis College, and her M.A. in Native American Studies and a Ph.D. in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma. She is a recipient of the Cobell Scholarship, the Plains Anthropological Society Native American Student Research Award, and the University of Oklahoma Social Sciences Graduate Student Research Award.
“I am excited to welcome Royce to the DAM as our next Associate Curator of Native Arts,” said John P. Lukavic, the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Native Arts and Head of the Native Arts Department at the DAM. “Her advocacy work as a curator, an artist and a practitioner along with her perspective ensure we continue serving our community authentically, centering the deep history of Indigenous communities as well as continuing to evolve the platform for present and future Indigenous cultural and artistic conversations. I am excited to see her work!”
After working with her elders to complete the MHA Nation Interpretive Center’s permanent exhibition on the history of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara people, she was chosen to be the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral fellow in Native American Art and Curation and a Presidential Visiting Fellow in the History of Art Department at Yale University. Young Wolf was a member of the United Nations Global Indigenous Languages Caucus and was the inaugural Assistant Curator of Native American and Indigenous Art at the Yale University Art Gallery. Her doctoral studies focused on Indigenous rights and relationship (re)making through language revitalization and the arts. Her curatorial work has been defined through community collaboration, outreach and exhibition development with Indigenous knowledge keepers and artists.
In her role as Associate Curator of Native Arts, Young Wolf will work across museum teams to develop and implement strategic initiatives related to the Indigenous Arts of North America. This includes establishing a collecting plan and securing new acquisitions, developing exhibitions and relationship building with diverse Indigenous communities, knowledge keepers, artists and donors to name a few.
“I’ve always been taught that cultural items and artistic works by Indigenous artists or makers become creative vessels which make thoughts, songs and memories tangible,” said Royce K. Young Wolf, Associate Curator of Native Arts. “The work that I do as a curator of Indigenous arts is to seek an understanding of this meaningfulness and to invest in an artist’s legacy through the acts of collaboration and proper representation which elevates the artistic works, evokes ancestral memories and elicits visions of a collective tomorrow.”
Planning Your Visit
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About the Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is an educational, nonprofit resource that sparks creative thinking and expression through transformative experiences with art. Its holdings reflect the city and region—and provide invaluable ways for the community to learn about cultures from around the world. Metro area residents support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), a unique funding source serving hundreds of metro Denver arts, culture and scientific organizations. For museum information, call 720-865-5000 or visit www.denverartmuseum.org.
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