Jennifer Thompson has been named Deputy Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, stepping into senior leadership after 25 years at the institution. Jennifer Thompson started the role July 1, and will oversee the museum’s Registration, Installations and Packing, Exhibition Planning, and Photography departments — the operational backbone behind every show the PMA puts up.

A Philadelphia Career, 25 Years in the Making

Jennifer Thompson joined the PMA in 2001 as a research assistant and curatorial fellow. She went on to become Associate Curator of European Painting and Curator of the Rodin Museum from 2008 to 2015, then the Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting & Sculpture and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection from 2015 through this year.

Most recently, she held the title of Gisela and Dennis Alter Curator of European Painting and Head of European Art. In that role, she oversaw the June opening of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers: A Symphony in Blue and Yellow, the exhibition pairing two of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings — one on loan from London’s National Gallery, one from the PMA’s own collection — on view through October 11.

PMA Director and CEO Daniel Weiss called Jennifer Thompson’s appointment a reflection of “the curatorial expertise and essential perspective required as we envision the future of the museum together,” adding that her role will ensure the museum’s “most ambitious ideas are supported by the operational capacity needed to deliver them.”

Stewarding a City Treasure: The Johnson Collection

As Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection, Jennifer Thompson has been responsible for more than 1,200 Italian, Dutch, Netherlandish, and French paintings — assembled by Philadelphia lawyer John G. Johnson and bequeathed to the city in 1917. That collection is a genuine piece of Philadelphia civic history, and her stewardship of it over the past decade is worth noting for anyone who’s walked through those galleries without knowing the backstory.

She’s also organized major traveling exhibitions including Mary Cassatt at Work, which moved from the PMA to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Honolulu Museum of Art in 2024–25, and Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting, which traveled to the PMA from the Musée d’Orsay and London’s National Gallery.

Jennifer Thompson earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland before building a Philadelphia career that now spans a quarter century. The next time you’re standing in front of a Cassatt or a Renoir at the PMA, there’s a good chance her judgment shaped how you’re seeing it — and now she’s shaping how every future exhibition gets built.

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Allan Lane

Philadelphia born and bred, Allan Lane is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of digital magazines. He launched his first publication, SportBikes Inc Magazine in 2010, followed by dosage MAGAZINE in 2019. Recently, Allan launched his third online publication, Club For Man. As a journalist, Allan covers fashion, lifestyle, culture, art, and motorcycles.

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