Paul Manoguerra Hired As New Director, Curator of Jundt Art Museum

Gonzaga News Service 

SPOKANE, Wash. — Paul A. Manoguerra has accepted the position of director and curator of the Gonzaga University Jundt Art Museum, effective June 1. Manoguerra has served since 2002 as chief curator and curator of American Art at the Georgia Museum of Art located at the University of Georgia, in Athens. J. Scott Patnode, the first curator and director of the Jundt Art Museum, retired from the position last year.

Manoguerra earned a doctorate in American Studies from Michigan State University, a master's in museum studies from The George Washington University, and a bachelor's degree in history from University of Notre Dame. His academic specialties include the arts of the American colonies and the United States from the 18th-21st centuries; museum studies, the theory and philosophy of museum practice, curatorial methods, and museum management; American cultural and social history; material culture; and interdisciplinary approaches to art education and appreciation.

"I am looking forward to becoming a member of the community in Spokane, and to serving an active role as a representative for the Jundt Art Museum, for Gonzaga University, and for the arts in the region," Manoguerra said, adding that all great American universities have lively and vibrant art museums.

"As such, the students and faculty at Gonzaga need to feel and to believe that the Jundt Art Museum is their art museum; to take ownership in its programs and activities," he said. "In line with Gonzaga's own strategic plan, one goal for the Jundt would be to strengthen existing programs and to create new ones that informed and involved students and faculty in the everyday life of the museum."

At the Georgia Museum of Art, Manoguerra has curated several award-winning exhibitions and projects, including "Amazing Grace: Self-Taught Artists from the Mullis Collection," which featured 90 folk art objects from a private collection in Atlanta. The catalogue for "Amazing Grace" won a bronze medal in the fine arts category of the 2008 Independent Publisher Book Awards. "Amazing Grace" also won the 2008 Award of Excellence for exhibitions from the Southeastern Museums Conference.

Manoguerra authored "One Hundred American Paintings," partially supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and published in late 2010. The book was named a 2011 Book of the Year Finalist in Art by "ForeWard Reviews," and won the "Special Projects" award from the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries.

Manoguerra was curator and author for "Classic Ground: Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Painting and the Italian Encounter," an exhibition and book that examined American paintings, created as the result of Italian travels, within the context of U.S. social and cultural history. "Classic Ground" won (2005) the Award of Excellence for Exhibitions at the Southeastern Museums Conference, and the Mary Ellen LoPresti Art Publication Award of the Southeast Chapter of the Art Libraries Society of North America.

Manoguerra has curated and developed more than 60 art exhibitions of various sizes. His scholarship has appeared in several publications, including the American Art Review, the New Georgia Encyclopedia, and the Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide. He was instrumental in the planning, implementation, and programming of the Georgia Museum of Art's new permanent collection wing addition, which opened in 2011.

He has taught at several institutions, including in the First Year Odyssey program for freshmen and an upper-level art history course at the University of Georgia, and at Kalamazoo College, Lansing Community College, Michigan State University, and Western Michigan University.

During his undergraduate studies, Manoguerra spent a year on the Saint Mary's College (Indiana) Rome program. As a graduate student, he served as an intern in the prestigious Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Before coming to University of Georgia, he worked in curatorial roles at the Kresge Art Museum, the Paine Art Center & Gardens, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.