Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Prather wins top alumni award from alma mater


Tue, 05/08/2012

author

Kristi Henderson

Marla Prather


LAWRENCE – Marla Prather, curator of modern and contemporary art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is being honored as a distinguished alumna by the University of Kansas’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on May 15.

Prather has helped develop collections at some of the most well-known museums in the world, including the Tate Modern, London; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

In 2010, Prather was the curator for the Metropolitan’s venue of “John Baldessari: Pure Beauty” and contributed to the catalogue “Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” and to “Bridget Riley: Paintings and Related Work” for an exhibition at the National Gallery, London.

Prather is currently preparing two exhibitions for the Met: “Ellsworth Kelly: Plant Drawings” for the summer of 2012 and “Regarding Warhol, Fifty Artists, Fifty Years” for the fall.

KU’s reception in honor of Prather will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. For more information, contact Patrick Woods at (785) 864-3516 or cpwoods@ku.edu.

Prather is one of four recipients of the 2011-’12 Alumni Distinguished Achievement Awards from the KU College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. The other honorees are internationally recognized civic leader Bob Kipp of Kansas City; renowned bee researcher Marla Spivak of Minneapolis; and President Juan Manuel Santos of the Republic of Colombia.

The Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award is the highest honor bestowed upon alumni of the College at KU. Prather, a Salina native, graduated from KU with bachelor’s degrees in art history and French in 1978, and a master’s in art history in 1981.

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the largest and broadest academic unit at the University of Kansas. About half of all KU alumni graduated with a degree from the College, which offers dozens of diverse majors in natural sciences and mathematics, social and behavioral sciences, humanities, international and interdisciplinary studies, and the arts.


Tue, 05/08/2012

author

Kristi Henderson

Media Contacts

Kristi Henderson

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

785-864-3663