Dorothy Moss

Dorothy Moss is curator of painting and sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery and coordinating curator of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative. After graduating from Smith College, Moss earned an M.A. in art history from Williams College, and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Delaware.

Moss directed the 2013, 2016, and 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competitions. As curator of the National Portrait Gallery’s first performance art series, “IDENTIFY: Performance Art as Portraiture,” she has commissioned new performances by multiple artists. She serves as a curator of the ongoing “Portraiture Now” series and co-curated “The Face of Battle: Americans at War, 9/11 to Now” (2017). Her past exhibitions include “One Life: Sylvia Plath” (2017), “The Sweat of Their Face: Portraying American Workers” (2017), and most recently “Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands” in September 2021—accompanied by a scholarly catalogue published by Yale University Press.

Prior to joining the National Portrait Gallery, Moss served as assistant curator of American art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She also worked as a researcher and writer for the installation of the Luce Foundation Center for American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues, and her commentaries and articles have appeared in such publications as the Burlington Magazine, American Art, click!: photography changes everything, and Gastronomica. Moss is a co-author of The Obama Portraits (Princeton University Press/National Portrait Gallery, 2020).