Mandeville interim director begins work at Union

Publication Date

Curator and exhibitions specialist Marie Costello of the Robert Lehman Art Center at the Brooks School, in North Andover, Mass., has joined Union as interim director of the Mandeville Gallery at the Nott Memorial.

In her new role, Costello also will oversee the Wikoff Student Gallery and serve as interim curator of the Union College Permanent Collection.

Marie Costello

Costello had headed the Lehman Center at Brooks, a college preparatory boarding and day school located 30 north of Boston, since 2007. Her last show there, “Pulp Fiction Paintings," which runs through June 11 – and which she hopes to bring to Union this summer – has been called “one of the best shows of the year” by the Boston Phoenix.

“Leaving behind the Lehman Art Center for the Mandeville Gallery is an exciting challenge. I especially look forward to working with Union faculty and students to present their art in the most professional way,” Costello said.

Costello also worked as assistant curator at the Worcester Art Museum for two years and was assistant to the curator of the Horvitz Collection at the Fogg Museum at Harvard, where she helped to manage the large private collection of 18th and 19th French and Italian drawings. She was an intern in book and paper conservation at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze.

Costello received a Master of Arts degree in art history from Tufts University and a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy at Skidmore. She also completed course work and oral exams for her Ph.D. in medieval art at Boston University.

She was selected by a five-member search committee headed by Art History Department Chair David Ogawa. She succeeds Rachel Seligman, who is now associate curator of the Tang Museum at Skidmore.

“I hope to engage all of Union College in interdisciplinary exhibitions that reach across the curriculum – English, history, science, languages and more – while at the same time draw in the Schenectady community and the greater art world,” Costello said. “For me, quality and presentation are both necessary to create the most enriching experience of art.”