Senior Curator Concludes Ten Years of Excellent Work at the UMFA

A Fond Farewell to Whitney Tassie

Whitney Tassie and exhibition designer Sara Palmer work together to prepare two prairie bonnets covered in pearl-headed pins for display
Whitney Tassie (right) works to prepare Angela Ellsworth's Seer Bonnets for display in the UMFA's modern and contemporary gallery ahead of the museum's reopening in 2017. Two Seer Bonnets are currently touring in Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea.

Heartfelt thanks and bittersweet farewell to Whitney Tassie as she wraps up a high-impact ten-year curatorial career at the UMFA this summer 2022. Whitney’s thoughtful leadership and collaborative practice have helped evolve our ways of working and led directly to increased community engagement and a greater diversity of artists in collections and exhibitions.  

As curator of modern and contemporary art, and eventually senior curator, Whitney has been an instrumental contributor and powerful voice for raising awareness of and implementing work related to inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA). She initiated early conversations among staff and across the University of Utah campus on topics of decolonization and social justice and worked to make the Museum’s collections and exhibitions more inclusive.  

Whitney Tassie discuss a sculpture of a large cracked glass box with a group of University students
Whitney Tassie discusses a Walead Beshty sculpture with a group of University of Utah students.

Whitney invited new and important artists to feature their work in our galleries, including Yuki Kihara, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and Yang Yongliang, among others. She reimagined possibilities for the G. W. Anderson Family Great Hall, inviting and commissioning respected contemporary artists like Tony Feher and Spencer Finch to engage with the physicality of the UMFA’s architectural center in new and interesting ways. In 2021, Whitney led efforts to mount the UMFA’s first exhibition of large-scale, site-specific murals with the multi-artist project 2020: From Here on Out. She was also instrumental in bringing many other important projects to the UMFA, including 2021’s Black Refractions: Highlights from the Studio Museum in Harlem, the new Air exhibition, and—coming in spring 2023—Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea.    

Thanks in part to her leadership, the UMFA is more committed than ever to forming and nurturing collaborative affiliations that engage a wider range of our community in co-creating the Museum’s exhibitions, collections, and programs. We wish Whitney all the best in her new endeavors and pledge to press forward with the work she inspired.