Jane Panetta

Jane Panetta is a curator and scholar with special interests in American and European modern and contemporary art. She joined the Whitney in 2013 and, most recently, led the collection team as the Nancy and Fred Poses Curator and Director of the Collection, overseeing acquisitions and collection displays, and served as the co-director overseeing analysis and planning for the future of the collection. During her tenure at the Whitney, Panetta facilitated a number of critical historical acquisitions including key works by Carmen Herrera, Norman Lewis, Juanita McNeely and Jack Whitten. Panetta also served on the Whitney Museum’s Emerging Artists Working Group (which she co-led from 2018-2020) and has also been instrumental in building programming of emerging artists and related works for the collection. 

Panetta has curated a wide range of projects at the Whitney beginning with her work on the curatorial team for America Is Hard to See (2015), the Museum’s inaugural presentation of the collection in its downtown location and was also the co-curator of the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Additionally, Panetta has curated solo and groups show at the Whitney including Mirror Cells (2016), Fast Forward: Paintings from the 1980s (2017) and organized solo presentations of the work of Njideka Akunyili Crosby (2015), Willa Nasatir (2017), Juan Antonio Olivares (2018), Jill Mulleady (2020), Jennifer Packer (2021) and Rose B. Simpson (2023). 

Prior to joining the Whitney, Panetta worked at The Museum of Modern Art for nearly a decade where she worked on a range of large-scale monographic projects as part of the Department of Painting and Sculpture including Edvard Munch: the Modern Life of the Soul (2006), Richard Serra: Forty Years (2007), and James Ensor (2009). Panetta has lectured, taught and written widely on contemporary art and sculpture, in particular, including work with Art in America, Modern Painters, Dia Beacon, Storm King Art Center, Yale University School of Art and Parsons/The New School. Panetta holds a B.A. in History from Haverford College and an M.A. in Art History from Hunter College. Panetta is also member of Madison Square Park’s Public Art Consortium.