New Curator At The Gardner Museum

After an extensive search, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum announced Monday the name of its new curator of the collection.

Dr. Oliver Tostmann starts his new job in April and will be responsible for overseeing the historic collection, organizing exhibitions and orchestrating scholarly publications on the historic museum’s holdings. Tostmann joins a team of five curators at the museum.

“Oliver impressed the search committee with his ideas for working on the museum’s unique collection and history,” Gardner Director Anne Hawley said in a statement. “Out of the many candidates who we considered, we heard repeatedly from our colleagues that Oliver is a major emerging talent in the profession. We look forward to the scholarly contributions and new thinking that he will bring to the museum.”

The Gardner search committee chose Tostmann from a pool of nearly 100 candidates nominated by museum staff and colleagues in the museum world. He’s worked at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C, the Akademie der Staatlichen Museen von Berlin (National Museums in Berlin) and at the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum in Braunschweig.

Tostmann is originally from a small village in Northern Germany and went on to attend school in Hildesheim, Berlin, Paris and Pisa. In the release Tostmann is quoted as saying he’s “curious to discover Boston, with its wonderful cultural legacy.”