UA News

Britt Salvesen has been named director and chief curator for the Center for Creative Photography.

Britt Salvesen has been named director and chief curator for The University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography. Her appointment becomes effective March. 1.

After an extensive search that generated a list of "distinguished" candidates, the selection committee found Salvesen, who had been serving as the center's interim director, to be the "ideal candidate" to lead the center.

“Britt Salvesen is a young, dynamic voice in the field of photography," said John Schaefer, co-chair of the center's Board of Fellows and a member of the selection committee.

"Her scholarly insights and imagination have secured her reputation as a curator," Schaefer noted. "Britt’s vision, leadership skills, and commitment to the center make her an ideal choice for the position of director.”

David Knaus, also a board co-chairman who served on the selection committee, said "Salvesen’s strong academic, curatorial, and administrative skills are the ideal complement to lead the center in its mission of collecting significant archives and advancing the research and study of the history of photography.”

Salvesen, who earned her doctorate in art history from the University of Chicago, has earned several distinctions in the field of photography. They include a scholarly residence with the Rockefeller Foundation at the Bellagio Center and a Getty Curatorial Research Fellowship.

She joined the UA's center as curator in October 2004 after a stint as associate curator of prints, drawings and photographs at the Art Institute of Chicago.

In June 2007, after the departure of Doug Nickel, Salvesen was appointed interim director and curator for the UA's center and has since overseen the continued digitization of the print collection.

Salvesen also reintroduced the center’s scholarly journal, The Archive, and guided ambitious exhibition programs for the center’s primary gallery and for its new Norton Photography Gallery at the Phoenix Art Museum.

The center is part of the UA Libraries.