Kathleen Ash-Milby

Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo Nation) is Curator of Native American Art at the Portland Art Museum. Since 2019 she has expanded the museum’s engagement with Indigenous artists, including through major acquisitions and exhibitions. She was a commissioner and curator for Jeffrey Gibson’s exhibition in the US Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2024), a collaboration between the Portland Art Museum and SITE Santa Fe. Previously, Ash-Milby spent nineteen years at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York, where she organized numerous solo and thematic group exhibitions including Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe (2022); Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound (2021); and Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist (2015). She was curator and co-director of the American Indian Community House Gallery in New York City, a community-based nonprofit devoted to the exhibition of Native American artists. Ash-Milby was a 2015 fellow in the Center for Curatorial Leadership Program in New York and served on the boards of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective, the American Indian Community House, and the Native American Art Studies Association. A member of the Navajo Nation, she earned a Master of Arts from the University of New Mexico.