Biography
Donna Stein is an art historian, curator, and critic who was educated at The University of California at Los Angeles and the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. She was mentored by the legendary Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. After a six-year stint at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Ms. Stein served as art adviser on western modern art for the Secretariat of Her Imperial Majesty, the Shahbanou of Iran. Her memoir entitled The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art was released by Skira Books in Spring 2021. Her most recent book is Archaeology of Metaphor, The Art of Gilah Yelin Hirsch, published by Skira Editore in October 2022.
Over the course of her distinguished career, Ms. Stein has published more than 100 articles and over 40 books and catalogues related to her primary curatorial interests: Cubism, Modern Illustrated Books, History of Photography and Contemporary American and Iranian art. Ms. Stein has organized exhibitions for The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The National Gallery, Toledo Museum of Art, Center for the Fine Arts, Miami and The Detroit Institute of Arts among many other cultural institutions and museums around the world. Ms. Stein's notable curatorial projects investigating Cubism and Modern Illustrated Books include The Cubist Print, Art Museum, University of California Santa Barbara; Cubist Prints/Cubist Books, New York Franklin Furnace Archive; I Libri Cubisti, Siena, Italy’s Palazzo Communale, and The Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor. Ms. Stein was the first American scholar to study nineteenth century photography in Iran and her notable publications on this fascinating subject include articles in History of Photography and Muqarnas, a Harvard-based journal of Islamic Art and Architecture. More recent publications on Iranian art and culture include two chapters in Performing the Iranian State: Visual Culture and Representations of Iranian Identity (2013). In addition, an extensive essay covering her activities collecting western photography for what became the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art was included in The Indigenous Lens: Early Photography in the Near and Middle East, (2018).
Ms. Stein recently received an award for innovation from the Los Angeles Chapter of Art Table. The Art Libraries Society of New York cited her meticulous scholarship and she was awarded fellowships and grants from the Richard A. Florsheim Art Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts and the French Government. Ms. Stein recently retired from museum administration after serving as Deputy Director of the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Los Angeles. She writes and studies in the San Gabriel Valley where she lives with her husband in the shadow of historic Mount Wilson.
Over the course of her distinguished career, Ms. Stein has published more than 100 articles and over 40 books and catalogues related to her primary curatorial interests: Cubism, Modern Illustrated Books, History of Photography and Contemporary American and Iranian art. Ms. Stein has organized exhibitions for The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The National Gallery, Toledo Museum of Art, Center for the Fine Arts, Miami and The Detroit Institute of Arts among many other cultural institutions and museums around the world. Ms. Stein's notable curatorial projects investigating Cubism and Modern Illustrated Books include The Cubist Print, Art Museum, University of California Santa Barbara; Cubist Prints/Cubist Books, New York Franklin Furnace Archive; I Libri Cubisti, Siena, Italy’s Palazzo Communale, and The Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor. Ms. Stein was the first American scholar to study nineteenth century photography in Iran and her notable publications on this fascinating subject include articles in History of Photography and Muqarnas, a Harvard-based journal of Islamic Art and Architecture. More recent publications on Iranian art and culture include two chapters in Performing the Iranian State: Visual Culture and Representations of Iranian Identity (2013). In addition, an extensive essay covering her activities collecting western photography for what became the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art was included in The Indigenous Lens: Early Photography in the Near and Middle East, (2018).
Ms. Stein recently received an award for innovation from the Los Angeles Chapter of Art Table. The Art Libraries Society of New York cited her meticulous scholarship and she was awarded fellowships and grants from the Richard A. Florsheim Art Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts and the French Government. Ms. Stein recently retired from museum administration after serving as Deputy Director of the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Los Angeles. She writes and studies in the San Gabriel Valley where she lives with her husband in the shadow of historic Mount Wilson.
