Denver Art Museum Announces New Curators

It's a big day for the Denver Art Museum. Fresh from receiving a Tourism Star Award at the Visit Denver Tourism Hall of Fame dinner on March 9, the DAM just announced three curatorial appointments.  Associate curator Jennifer R. Henneman is now curator of western American art and director at the Petrie Institute of Western American Art; Rory Padeken is the Vicki and Kent Logan curator of modern and contemporary art; and Raphael Fonseca is the associate curator of modern and contemporary Latin American art, a role that was created in 2021.

Henneman was given the role after a nationwide search. Since she joined the DAM in 2016, she has been a co-curator of the blockbuster exhibit Natural Forces: Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington and edited and contributed to The American West in Art: Selections From the Denver Art Museum, which was published in 2020 and won a Colorado Book Award.

“During my six years at the DAM, I have worked to expand the scope of the western American art canon,” Henneman says in a press release. “I look forward to continuing these efforts and am committed to inclusive storytelling and collaborative curation to highlight important stories of the West.”

“Henneman brings deep knowledge of the Petrie Institute’s collections, and has participated in and contributed to its prestige as a place of scholarship on western American art,” adds Angelica Daneo, the DAM’s chief curator and curator of European and American art before 1900.
Padeken, who is currently a curator at the San Jose Museum of Art, will join the DAM in June. He was included on the Top 40 Under 40 list of the Silicon Valley Business Journal, and is known for mounting exhibits that explore humanitarian crises.


“The DAM’s commitment to telling artists’ stories and engaging with the community aligns beautifully with my own curatorial approach, which aims to connect art with everyday life,” Padeken says. “I look forward to working with the talented team at the DAM to showcase the museum’s modern and contemporary holdings through an inclusive lens.”
Fonseca came to the DAM in 2021 after serving as curator at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói. "The newly created curatorial position supports the research, exhibition and collection of modern and contemporary Latin American artwork at the DAM," according to the press release.

“The DAM is home to one of the most comprehensive collections of Latin American art in the U.S., and I look forward to using my position to spotlight modern and contemporary artistic creativity and achievement from the region,” Fonseca says.

The Tourism Star Award given the DAM cited the "renovation and opening of the Martin Building and Sie Welcome Center, and for the Paris to Hollywood and Whistler to Cassatt exhibitions." DAM director Christoph Heinrich accepted the award.

For more information, visit denverartmuseum.org.