John Elderfield is the Chief Curator Emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Personal:
Married to Jeanne Collins

Background:
John Elderfield has played an integral role at MoMA since joining the Museum as Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture in 1975. Since then, he has contributed to the Museum's curatorial excellence in a number of key positions, including Chief Curator at Large (1993-2003), Director for Curatorial Affairs (1996-99), Director of the Department of Drawings (1980-93), and, since 2003, The Marie-Josee and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture. He retired in 2007, in keeping with the Museum policy for Chief Curators and other senior managers to retire at age 65.

Mr. Elderfield has been the curator of 24 exhibitions and some 20 publications at MoMA. In addition to the major survey of the work of American sculpture Martin Puryear, on view through January 14, he organized major exhibitions including Armando Reveron (2007), Manet and the Execution of Maximilian (2006), Henri Matisse: A Retrospective (1992), and Kurt Schwitters (1985), and co-organized many others, including Matisse Picasso (2003), ModernStarts (2000), and Bonnard (1998). He also conceived and oversaw the execution of the reinstallation of the Museum’s galleries for painting and sculpture for the 2004 reopening of MoMA. He is the author of numerous catalogues and essays, many of which have been recognized with awards. He is credited with bringing many major works of art into the Museum's collection, including, most recently, Henri Matisse's Plum Blossoms, Ochre Background (1948), Robert Rauschenberg's Rebus (1955), and Jasper Johns' Diver (1962-63).