Jennie Goldstein Named Inaugural Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud Curator of the Collection

The Whitney Museum of American Art has named Jennie Goldstein as the inaugural Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud Curator of the Collection. This position has been made possible by a generous endowment gift from the Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud Foundation in honor of the Museum’s longtime supporter and founding member of the Whitney’s National Committee, who passed away in 2015.

In this role, Goldstein will lead the strategic oversight of the Museum’s collection of over 26,000 works of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American art, managing its growth while developing opportunities for scholarship and display. She will promote the collection through special exhibitions and projects, like the recently announced High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100, co-curated with Roxanne Smith, Jennifer Rubio Assistant Curator of the Collection, opening on October 18, and continue curating rigorous temporary exhibitions, such as Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night, currently on view through September 21.

 “I am enormously grateful to the Marion Boulton ‘Kippy’ Stroud Foundation for this transformative gift in support of the Whitney’s curatorial team and collection,” remarked Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director. “This new role will honor in perpetuity Kippy’s memory and her deep love of American art and artists, as well as the Whitney.”

“The Marion Boulton ‘Kippy’ Stroud Foundation is honored to endow the position of Curator of the Collection at the Whitney,” said Ann Loftus, the chair of the foundation’s board. “Kippy was deeply committed to supporting artists and curators throughout her life. Supporting this position reflects that commitment and Kippy’s love of and respect for the Whitney.”

“Jennie Goldstein brings great expertise to this new role and a profound appreciation for the Whitney's mission to collect and present new stories of American art,” added Kim Conaty, Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator. “Jennie’s deeply collaborative spirit and her care for artists and their work will perfectly carry forward Kippy’s commitments and legacy.”

Goldstein has held various positions at the Whitney Museum, most recently serving as the Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator of the Collection since 2023. She has organized or co-organized numerous celebrated exhibitions including Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night (2025), Shifting Landscapes (2024–26), Natalie Ball: bilwi naats Ga’niipci (2023), In the Balance: Between Painting and Sculpture, 1965–1985 (2023), Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 (2019–22), and An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017 (2018).

In addition to her work on exhibitions, Goldstein has played a key role in managing the Museum’s acquisition and loan processes and participates in several cross-departmental working groups and committees. During her tenure at the Whitney, she has held several positions in the Curatorial department, and she also worked as a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow in the Museum’s Education department.

Goldstein holds a master’s degree in art history from Stony Brook University in New York and is the recipient of a 2024 Teiger Foundation grant. 

About Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud

Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud (1939–2015) was a museum founder and director, a generous and unwavering supporter of artists and curators, and a founding member of the Whitney’s National Committee from 1985 until her passing in 2015. She was the daughter of Dr. Morris Wistar Stroud III and Marion Sims Rosengarten. Kippy was best known for founding The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia in 1977 and the international artist and curator think tank, Acadia Summer Arts Program (commonly called “Camp Kippy”) on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Over the years, many artists in the Whitney’s collection, as well as Biennials, along with the Museum’s curators spent meaningful residencies in both programs.

Early in her career, Kippy was also the first director of Prints in Progress, a program to bring together practicing artists and children through printmaking, which inspired her founding of The Fabric Workshop and Museum. Her vision was for The Fabric Workshop to be a studio where artists were invited to create “without any preconceived notions of what they had to do.” Of the nearly 140 artists who participated in The Fabric Workshop’s storied artist in residence program, 82 are part of the Whitney’s collection—ten of whom currently have works on view at the Museum, including Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mary Heilmann, Roy Lichtenstein, Glenn Ligon, James Luna, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, Ed Ruscha, Alison Saar, and Betye Saar.

Her personal art collection contained approximately 1,500 works of art, including those by Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, and others. Kippy had a long history with the Whitney Museum, starting with her participation on the National Committee but expanding further to support the Museum’s Film and Video Committee, as well as contributing works of art and funding exhibitions such as Bill Viola: Five Angels for the Millennium and one devoted to Mike Kelley, among other gifts.

Source: Whitney Museum