CHICAGO—The Terra Foundation for American Art is pleased to welcome Turry M. Flucker as its Vice President of Collections and Partnerships. In this newly created position, Flucker will oversee the foundation’s 750-object American art collection with the goal of sharing expansive narratives of American art locally and globally, as well as foster collaborative, interdisciplinary partnerships throughout the field. Flucker, who currently serves as director and curator of Tougaloo College Art Collections in Tougaloo, MS, brings nearly 30 years of experience to the position. He will begin at the foundation on August 1.
At Tougaloo College, Flucker provided the artistic vision guiding the stewardship of the college’s 1,500-object art collections and cultivated a wide range of national partnerships. He facilitated preservation and digitization efforts that expanded how the collection can be used to construct new interpretive frameworks, and established the Tougaloo College Visible Storage Gallery, a teaching lab for the close study of objects. Flucker also curated and authored the traveling exhibition and catalogue Art and Activism at Tougaloo College, co-organized by the American Federation of Arts, and he organized the teaching exhibition FREEDOM: Abstract Expressionism, Tougaloo College and the Civil Rights Movement.
“We are delighted to welcome Turry M. Flucker to the Terra Foundation and to our leadership team as we continue to re-envision our program portfolio in alignment with our evolving vision,” said Sharon Corwin, president & CEO of the Terra Foundation for American Art. “Turry is a visionary leader and scholar, who for decades has collaborated with artists and communities throughout the United States to tell stories that embrace broad and truthful histories of American art. His commitment to building relationships across the field will be invaluable as we continue to grow and activate a robust partner network and seek new approaches and perspectives to reinterpreting our collection.”
“Throughout my career, I have worked to expand the American cultural narrative at art and historical institutions throughout the American South, and during that time, I have learned that art has the power to bring people together by breaking down the barriers that traditionally divide them,” said Flucker. “I am delighted to join the dynamic group of art historians, scholars, and creative thinkers at the Terra Foundation, both in Chicago and in Paris, and look forward to catalyzing our shared goals to strengthen the foundation’s existing partnerships, establish new relationships, and continue to share the foundation’s art collection. I also look forward to working with the team to highlight the contributions of artists, communities, and institutions that cultivate and shape American art.”
Prior to his work at Tougaloo, Flucker served as visual arts director at the Mississippi Arts Commission, branch director at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans, LA, and curator at the Smith Robertson Museum in Jackson, MS. During his time with the Mississippi Arts Commission, Flucker managed two major granting initiatives that allowed several Mississippi-based arts organizations to expand their physical spaces and acquire works of art. While at the Louisiana State Museum, Flucker directed the planning and development of several special projects, including reuniting—50 years to the day—three of the four women who desegregated the New Orleans Public Schools and the U.S. Marshals who escorted them to school daily in 1960. While at the Smith Robertson Museum, he initiated a new exhibition program and curated a local installation of the traveling exhibition Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. In partnership with the Smithsonian Latino Center, which is now a part of the National Museum of the American Latino, Flucker presented La Vida de los Latinos en los Estados Unidos.
Flucker has been selected as a 2023 fellow by the Clark Institute’s Research and Academic Programs and was a 2020 fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership. He also serves on a range of boards and committees, including the Brooklyn Museum’s American Galleries Reinstallation Advisory Committee; the Louisiana National Register Committee; the Mississippi Nurses Foundation; the Alexander Pierre (A.P.) Tureaud Sr. Legacy Committee; and the Louisiana Civil Rights Museum Advisory Board. Flucker is co-author of African Americans of Jackson and African Americans of New Orleans and author of the International Review of African American Art’s analysis of the exhibition Beyond the Blues: Reflections on African America from the Fine Arts Collection of the Amistad Research Center, curated by Margaret Rose Vendryes. He earned a BA in History with an emphasis in African American Studies from Tougaloo College and an MA in Southern Studies, with a focus on the intersection of art history and the American civil rights movement from the University of Mississippi.
About the Terra Foundation for American Art
The Terra Foundation for American Art supports individuals, organizations, and communities to advance expansive understandings of American art. Established in 1978 and headquartered in Chicago, with an office in Paris, the Terra Foundation is committed to fostering cross-cultural dialogues on American art locally, nationally, and internationally, through its grant program, collection, and initiatives.
About the Terra Foundation Collection
The collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art is an inextricable part of the foundation’s history and an active agent of its global mission. The collection includes more than 750 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculptures by 242 artists working between the 1750s and the 1980s. The foundation makes its collection available throughout the world through loans and exhibitions.
Started by Daniel J. Terra in the 1970s, the Terra Foundation collection has continued to evolve up through the present. We recognize that this collection reflects only part of the artistic and cultural heritage of the United States and reveals current and historical inequities in the ways American art is presented, exhibited, interpreted, bought, and sold. We are committed to working alongside our partners to challenge the biases that shaped the collection and its interpretation and to reimagine ways the collection can help us question and broaden stories of American art.
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