Cathleen Chaffee

Cathleen Chaffee is an American curator, writer, and art historian specializing in contemporary art. She currently serves as the chief curator of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright–Knox Art Gallery) in Buffalo, New York, where she joined in January 2014.

Biography
Chaffee attended Ithaca College; followed by study at Courtauld Institute of Art where she received a M.A. degree; and the New York University Institute of Fine Arts where she received a Ph.D. in 2013. Her dissertation was Décors: Marcel Broodthaers's Late Exhibition Practice, 1974-1975, and her advisor was Robert Storr.

She previously worked at the Yale University Art Gallery from 2010 to 2013 in New Haven; the Museum of Modern Art from 2007 to 2008 in New York City; and the Cleveland Museum of Art from 2001 to 2004. Notable exhibitions curated by Chaffee include Marisol: A Retrospective (in 2023-25), the largest posthumous survey of the artist's work, Stanley Whitney: How High the Moon (in 2024-25), Stanley Whitney: the Italian Paintings (in 2022), (co-curated with Vincenzo de Bellis) an installation of works Whitney made in Italy since the 1990s. Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective (in 2018), the first large-scale museum survey devoted to artworks Conrad presented in museum and gallery settings, and part of an ongoing reappraisal of his creative achievement; Joe Bradley (in 2017); Clyfford Still / Mark Bradford (in 2016); Erin Shirreff (in 2016); Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama (from 2015 to 2016); Screen Play: Life in an Animated World (in 2015); Overtime: The Art of Work (in 2015); and Looking at Tomorrow: Light and Language from The Panza Collection, 1967–1990 (from 2015 to 2016).

She was awarded a Curatorial Fellowship from the VIA Art Fund in 2018; and a Fulbright Fellowship in 2008 to Belgium.

Publications

 * Chaffee, Cathleen; de Bellis, Vincenzo (2022). Stanley Whitney: The Italian Paintings. Buffalo, NY: Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen; de Bellis, Vincenzo (2022). Stanley Whitney: The Italian Paintings. Buffalo, NY: Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
 * Chaffee, Cathleen, ed. (2015). Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama: Essays, Interviews, and Scripts. Eija-Liisa Ahtila (artist). Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery.