Exhibits USA Welcomes Dr. Jane Aspinwall as Director of Exhibitions

Museums, libraries, and cultural centers across the country rely on Exhibits USA® traveling exhibitions to bring art and humanities exhibitions to their communities. Beginning November 2, Dr. Jane Aspinwall will lead that work as the new director of exhibitions.

For more than 35 years, Exhibits USA has developed and toured museum-quality exhibitions to museums, libraries, universities, and cultural venues across the country. The program has toured more than 325 exhibitions to more than 1,450 venues in over 1,000 communities, including many rural and underserved areas. Its exhibitions span visual art, photography, cultural history, and the humanities, giving organizations of all sizes the resources to share engaging arts and humanities experiences with their communities.

As director of exhibitions, Jane joins Mid-America Arts Alliance’s senior management team and leads the Exhibitions division. She will guide the planning, budgeting, and evaluation of Exhibits USA, special projects, and the Culture Lab, as well as build relationships with the artists, venues, and partners who make that work possible.

“M-AAA’s exhibitions bring art and humanities experiences to communities of every size, urban and rural, and that work depends on strong partnerships with venues and artists,” said Todd Stein, M-AAA president and chief executive officer. “Jane has built those partnerships throughout her career, and we’re excited to see how she will grow our exhibitions program in the years to come.”

Jane brings more than 20 years of experience in the museum field to her new role. For more than 15 years, she worked as a photography curator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where she oversaw a $10 million collecting initiative that added more than 800 objects to the collection. She later served as senior curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, in Florida.

Most recently, Jane has served as deputy director of the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend. There, she led a team of curators and collections staff and oversaw 18 to 20 exhibitions each year across the main museum and three satellite locations in Milwaukee and Madison. She has built close partnerships with artists, whether by exhibiting their work or inviting them to teach and speak. Her recent exhibitions include Weaving a Legacy: Ho-Chunk Black Ash Basketry, developed with guest curator Tom Jones.

Jane is no stranger to M-AAA. In 2016, she curated Celebrating Picasso: Photographs by David Douglas Duncan as a touring exhibition for Exhibits USA, with stops at the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, Wisconsin, and the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas.

Throughout her career, Jane has been interested in every part of the exhibition process, from creative, cost-effective presentation to accessibility and community engagement. She also serves as managing editor of Exhibition, the American Alliance of Museums’ peer-reviewed journal of exhibition theory and practice. She holds a PhD in the history of art and humanities and an MBA with an emphasis in arts management.

Jane says she was drawn to the role by M-AAA’s mission.

“I am thrilled for the opportunity to continue the excellent work that Kathy Dowell and her Exhibits USA team have done. Working for a smallish rural museum in Wisconsin, I have seen the importance of art to the community and how art truly matters,” says Jane.

“Our cultural landscape has changed so much—arts funding slashed, supply chain issues affect affordability, and political climate shifts—I was struck by M-AAA’s commitment to its mission and values to make art accessible to all, even in this difficult time. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?!”

Jane joins Exhibits USA as Kathy Dowell prepares to retire at the end of December after 14 years with the program.