Borns Jewish Studies Program

Jennifer McComas joined the Eskenazi Museum of Art as Curator of Western Art after 1800 in 2004, and was appointed Curator of European and American Art in 2015. She manages a collection of nearly 6,000 paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts that represent artistic production from the Middle Ages to the present. McComas's research interests include modern German art, the history of collecting and exhibitions, and the intersection of modern art and politics during the World War II and Cold War eras. Her exhibitions include The Grand Tour: Art and Travel, 1740–1914 (2008); Pioneers and Exiles: German Expressionism at the Indiana University Art Museum (2012); Abstract Painting in Europe, 1949–1968 (2017); and Americans Abroad: Landscape and Artistic Exchange, 1800–1920 (2018, a collaboration with Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing).

McComas implemented and manages the museum's Nazi-Era Provenance Research Project in accordance with the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. In addition to sharing this research with students, faculty, and local audiences, she has presented on Nazi art looting and visual propaganda in the Third Reich at numerous national and international conferences and roundtables. McComas's publications include exhibition catalogues and contributions to the Journal of Art Historiography, the Journal of Curatorial Studies, Stedelijk Studies, Re-envisioning the Contemporary Art Canon (2017), and Carl-Heinz Kliemann—Frühe Bilder (2018). Before joining the Eskenazi Museum of Art, McComas held positions at Art Resource, Inc., New York, the College of Wooster Art Museum in Ohio, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. She received her B.A. in art history at the College of Wooster and both her M.A. and Ph.D. in art history, with a specialization in modern European art, from Indiana University.