Jonathan Lack

Jonathan Lack
Name	Jonathan Lack
Birth date	1973
Birth place	Boston
Nationality	United States
Occupation	historian, author, curator
Notable works	The Missing Archive; Museum Lives
Awards	Pulitzer Prize (nominee), MacArthur Fellowship (finalist)

Jonathan Lack is an American historian, author, and museum curator known for interdisciplinary work at the intersection of cultural history, archives, and museum studies. Over a career spanning university appointments, curatorial positions, and public scholarship, he has engaged with institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Library of Congress. His research and exhibits have addressed provenance, public memory, and the politics of collections across collections in Europe, North America, and Africa.

Early life and education

Born in Boston in 1973, Lack grew up amid the civic institutions of Massachusetts and attended public schools in the Greater Boston area before matriculating at Harvard University, where he studied history and comparative literature under scholars associated with the Radcliffe Institute and the Department of History. He completed a master's degree at Yale University focused on archival theory and later earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University with a dissertation that drew on materials held at the New York Public Library, the British Library, and the National Archives (United Kingdom). During graduate study he spent research fellowships at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Courtauld Institute of Art, working with curators and conservators on provenance projects related to collections affected by twentieth-century transfers.

Career

Lack began his professional career as an assistant curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, collaborating with departments that organized loans with the Louvre Museum and the Prado Museum. He transitioned to academic roles with appointments at New York University and the University of Chicago, teaching courses that intersected material culture and archival practice alongside faculty from the Department of Art History and Archaeology and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. In the late 2000s he joined the staff of the Smithsonian Institution as a senior curator, where he directed collaborative projects with the National Portrait Gallery (United States), the Anacostia Community Museum, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Lack has served on advisory boards for the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the Association of Art Museum Curators, and the Society of American Archivists. He has been a visiting fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and a lecturer at the University of Oxford, offering seminars that brought together researchers from the British Museum, the V&A Museum, and the Wellcome Trust. His consultancy work has supported repatriation dialogues with representatives from the Benin Royal Court, the Government of Ghana, and cultural ministries in Nigeria and Kenya.

Major works and contributions

Lack’s publications include monographs, edited volumes, and exhibition catalogues that have influenced debates in provenance research and museum restitution. His first major book, The Missing Archive, compared case studies drawn from the Holocaust, colonial-era collections in West Africa, and displacement during the Yugoslav Wars, arguing for integrated approaches between collecting institutions and source communities. He co-edited Museum Lives, a volume that gathered essays by curators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Hermitage Museum on ethical display and community engagement.

Exhibitions curated by Lack tackled contentious provenance histories and public commemoration, with notable shows at the National Gallery of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He developed methodologies combining digitization initiatives with oral-history projects in partnership with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution Archives, promoting models later adopted by the Europeana and the Digital Public Library of America. His articles in journals such as the Journal of Museum Education, American Historical Review, and Public Historian reframed restitution as a process involving legal, ethical, and curatorial practices, drawing on precedent from the Nazi-looted art litigation and the UNESCO 1970 Convention.

Awards and recognition

Lack’s scholarship and curatorial leadership have been recognized by nominations and awards from major institutions. He was a finalist for a MacArthur Fellowship and received a research grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support collaborative provenance research. His exhibition catalogues have won awards from the American Alliance of Museums and the International Council of Museums, and his essays have been shortlisted for prizes administered by the Sir John Williamson Prize and the American Historical Association. He has delivered keynote addresses at conferences hosted by the Getty Research Institute, the Council on Library and Information Resources, and the European Association of Archaeologists.

Personal life and legacy

Lack resides in Washington, D.C. and has been active in civic cultural initiatives linked to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. He has mentored curators and doctoral students who went on to appointments at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Galleries of Scotland. Critics and supporters alike note his influence on contemporary museum practice, particularly in advancing frameworks for shared authority between institutions such as the British Museum and source communities in Africa and Oceania. His legacy is evident in changed acquisition policies at several major museums and in ongoing international dialogues facilitated by bodies like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Council of Europe.

Category:1973 births Category:American historians Category:Museum curators