Former dealer Caitlin Berry named inaugural director of the Rubell Museum’s Washington, DC outpost

The Rubell Museum has appointed the former art dealer Caitlin Berry to be the inaugural director of its forthcoming complex in Washington, DC, the 32,000 sq. ft museum that will open to the public on 29 October.

Berry was previously the director of the Cody Gallery at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, and served as a director at Hemphill Fine Arts, one of the leading commercial galleries in the US capital.

Berry holds degrees in gallery management and communications and art history from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She is on the board of the nonprofit Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art and is a member of the Washington chapter of ArtTable, an organisation that works to support leadership positions for women in the visual arts.

Some career highlights include curating and co-curating the 2019 and 2020 editions of Art Night, an annual exhibition and fundraiser that supports the Washington Project for the Arts, a platform supporting the creation of artist-run projects. Her areas of focus include mid-century African American art and contemporary art.

“The Rubell Museum DC will exclusively focus on the art of today and invite the public to encounter new ideas inspired by the nuanced expressions and lived experiences of the artists on view,” Berry says in a statement. “I look forward to expanding my work of fostering collaboration in the art ecosystem in DC and contributing to the dynamic cultural conversation that takes place here.”

The museum, which is housed in a historic school in DC’s Southwest quadrant that has been repurposed by the New York-based Beyer Blinder Belle Architects, follows the launch of the Rubell Family Collection’s sprawling Miami space in 2019, a 100,000 sq. ft warehouse converted by Selldorf Architects.

Both museums were created to showcase works from the collection of Don and Mera Rubell, who have amassed one of the largest and most influential collections of contemporary art.