Kathleen A. Foster

Kathleen Adair Foster is an American art historian, critic, and curator. Since 2002 she has served as the Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Senior Curator and Director of the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 1989 - 2002 she served as Senior Research Scholar and Class of 1949 Curator of Western Art at the Eskenazi Museum of Art. From 1979-1989 she worked at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, departing as Chief Curator and Director of Research and Publications.

The author of more than a dozen books, Foster's publications include American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent (Yale University Press, 2017), Shipwreck! Winslow Homer and “The Life Line” (Yale University Press, 2012), and Thomas Chambers: American Marine and Landscape Painter, 1808-1869 (Yale University Press, 2008), among others. Throughout her career, she has held teaching positions at Williams College, Temple University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the University of Pennsylvania. In 2015 Foster was made an Edmond J. Safra Professor at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.