Alexander J. Noelle Appointed Assistant Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500-1800 at the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Press Release

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Cleveland, OH (September 27, 2022)—The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) today announced the appointment of Alexander J. Noelle as assistant curator of European paintings and sculpture, 1500–1800, following an international search.
In his new role at the CMA, Noelle will participate in the care and development of the collection, and work closely with CMA Director William M. Griswold and Chief Curator Heather Lemonedes Brown on identifying and acquiring artworks to augment the collection. He will also curate special exhibitions and reinstall galleries in the permanent collection. The museum’s collection of Old Master European paintings and sculpture is of international importance, ranging from works created in the early years of the Renaissance through the Rococo period.
Noelle has been engaged in museum work for over a decade. Most recently he was the Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at the Frick Collection in New York City where he co-curated the first major exhibition on the Renaissance sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni, and co-authored and co-edited the accompanying publication. Previously, Noelle held curatorial and research positions at the Medici Archive Project in Florence, Italy, as well as in both the department of prints and drawings and the department of paintings at the Courtauld Gallery in London. He was also the publications and interpretative manager at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, directed museum outreach at Claire Oliver Gallery in New York City, and served as assistant curator at the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut.
“Alexander is a promising emerging scholar with a commitment to illuminating new perspectives on historical art. His specialization in Italian Renaissance art will enrich our understanding of paintings and sculpture in this area at the CMA. A meticulous researcher and elegant writer, we look forward to Alexander’s work on special exhibitions and the reinstallation of permanent collection galleries,” said Director Griswold.
The collections for which Noelle will be responsible—together with Cory Korkow, curator of European paintings and sculpture, 1500–1800—span three hundred years of artistic production throughout Europe and encompass paintings on panel and canvas and sculpture in wood, terracotta, bronze and marble. Areas of particular strength are the museum’s Italian and Spanish Baroque paintings and German and Austrian Baroque sculpture. The collection also has a number of internationally significant Italian Renaissance paintings and French and Flemish paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries. The museum’s collection of portrait miniatures is among the most outstanding in the world.
“I am thrilled to be joining the curatorial team at the Cleveland Museum of Art,” says Noelle. “I look forward to sparking new conversations across media, cultures and eras inspired by objects in Cleveland’s world-class collection of European paintings and sculpture. The CMA’s mission of facilitating meaningful encounters between viewers and artworks while empowering individuals of all backgrounds to make discoveries of their own mirrors my own ideology; it will be a privilege to contribute to this dynamic dialogue.”
In addition to his robust contributions to Bertoldo di Giovanni: The Renaissance of Sculpture in Medici Florence (New York: Frick Collection, 2019)—including two essays, multiple catalogue entries, and a documentary appendix—Noelle has published numerous essays, scholarly entries, and articles including “Parmigianino: Study of the Coronation of the Virgin for Santa Maria della Steccata,” in The Age of Experiment: Parmigianino at the Courtauld (2022); “Sandro Botticelli’s Portraits of Giuliano de’ Medici,” in Facture: Conservation, Science, Art History. Volume IV: Series, Multiples, Replicas (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2019); “The Art of the Network: Visualizing Social Relationships, 1400–1600,” Bulletin of the Society for Renaissance Studies (2018); “The Portrait of Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle by Scipione Pulzone: An Enduring Image,” The Courtauld Institute of Art Research Forum: Research Associate Projects & The Courtauld Collections (2014); and two essays in The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America’s Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899–2011) (New Britain, CT: New Britain Museum of American Art, 2011).
Noelle received a PhD and MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and earned a BA in History of Art and Italian from Vassar College. Noelle begins his new responsibilities at the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 12, 2022.