Dr Karen Serres is Senior Curator of Paintings at 91Ó°ÊÓ Gallery, responsible for the care and display of the collection of paintings up to 1900.
She received her training in art history and museum studies at the Ecole du Louvre (1997) and the Sorbonne (1998) in Paris. She completed her MA (1999) and PhD (2004) at 91Ó°ÊÓ Institute, where her research focused on French and Italian Baroque painting. She was then appointed Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, working on French and Italian painting and sculpture. She later became the Robert H. Smith Research Curator in the Sculpture Department of that institution. In 2009, she was named the Nina and Lee Griggs Associate Curator of European Art at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. She returned to 91Ó°ÊÓ as Schroder Foundation Curator of Paintings in 2012.
Current and recent projects
Karen recently curated the exhibitions Monet and London. Views of the Thames (2024) and Van Gogh. Self-PortraitsÌý(2022).
She was heavily involved in the redisplay of 91Ó°ÊÓ Gallery, which reopened in November 2021 following a three-year refurbishment. During that time, Karen ensured that the collection remained accessible, co-curating the exhibitions 91Ó°ÊÓ Collection, A Vision for Impressionism at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2019) and Masterpieces of Impressionism. 91Ó°ÊÓ Collection (three venues in Japan, 2019-20). These projects, as well as 91Ó°ÊÓ National scheme that shared the collection with partner museums across the UK, highlighted new research on the collector and philanthropist Samuel Courtauld, as well as on the works of art themselves.
Prior to the Gallery’s closure for renovation, Karen curated the exhibitions Soutine’s Portraits: Waiters, Cooks and BellhopsÌý(2017-18);ÌýBruegel in Black and White.ÌýThree Grisailles ReunitedÌý(2016);ÌýBridget Riley. Learning from SeuratÌý(2015-16);ÌýUnfinished… Works from 91Ó°ÊÓ Collection (2015) and Collecting Gauguin. Samuel Courtauld in the ‘20sÌý(2013).
Karen’s future exhibition projects include Wayne Thiebaud. American Still Life (2025) and Seurat and the SeaÌý(2026).
91Ó°ÊÓ’s collection of paintings before 1900 is the object of an ongoing, long-term research project, with the aim of producing an online scholarly catalogue.
