Michael Taylor

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Dr. Michael R. Taylor is the Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Art and Education at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia. A native of London, England, Taylor received Master of Arts degrees in Art History from both the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. He also received his Ph.D from the Courtauld Institute, where he wrote a dissertation on the work and ideas of Marcel Duchamp. Prior to his appointment at VMFA in May 2015, Dr. Taylor served as the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1997 to 2011, as well as the head of the department of modern and contemporary art. In 2011, Taylor was a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York City, which prepared him for the transition from curator to museum administrator. In June of that year, Taylor was appointed Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, a position he held until March 2015. A scholar of Dada and Surrealism, Dr. Taylor has organized a number of important exhibitions during his career, including Giorgio de Chirico and the Myth of Ariadne (2003); Salvador Dalí: The Centennial Retrospective (2004); Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective (2009); Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés (2009); and Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris (2010). In 2010, Dr. Taylor’s exhibition catalogue, Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés, won both the prestigious George Wittenborn Prize and first prize for best museum permanent collection catalogue by the American Association of Art Museum Curators. Also in 2009, Taylor was co-commissioner with Carlos Basualdo for the Bruce Nauman exhibition at the American Pavilion for the 53rd Venice Biennale. The exhibition won the Golden Lion award for best national pavilion. He is currently working on the exhibition Man Ray: The Paris Portraits, 1921-1939, which will open at VMFA in July 2021.