Currently, Dr. Lyons is Senior Collections Curator, History of Archaeology and Ancient Art at the Getty Research Institute (GRI). She will transition to the Getty Museum on June 2, 2008 and join the antiquities department at the Getty Villa, where the Museum’s collection of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art is housed and displayed.
In making the announcement of Dr. Lyons’ appointment, Dr. Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, said: “Claire has been a wonderful colleague to the Museum for many years. She is a highly regarded scholar and has curated several Getty exhibitions, including one that was part of the reopening of the Getty Villa in January 2006. She understands well the Getty’s mission and will help forge even more collaborative efforts between the Museum and the Research Institute. We greatly look forward to having her become a part of our curatorial team.”
In her new role as Curator of Antiquities, Dr. Lyons will report to Dr. Karol Wight, senior curator of Antiquities, and play a leading role in the department’s production of outstanding exhibitions and scholarly research that advance the field of antiquities. In 2006, she co-curated the exhibition Antiquity & Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites, which inaugurated the changing exhibition space at the Getty Villa. She also contributed to the award-winning catalog that accompanied the exhibition. Currently, she is curating the forthcoming exhibition Grecian Taste and Roman Spirit: The Society of Dilettanti, opening at the Getty Villa on August 7, 2008.
Dr. Lyons joined the Getty in 1985 and has held several positions at the GRI, where her curatorial projects centered on the afterlife of antiquity in the visual arts and culture, and the history of collecting. She received her AB in Classics (summa cum laude) from Bowdoin College, and her MA and PhD in Classical Archaeology from Bryn Mawr College. Dr. Lyons has written extensively on Greek art and archaeology, taking a special interest in antiquities in social contexts, both ancient and modern. She authored a study of the early cemeteries at Morgantina in Sicily, and has co-edited volumes on Greek colonialism, and on gender and sexuality in Greek and Roman art. In addition to her work at Morgantina, Dr. Lyons has excavated at Murlo, Metaponto, and Corinth. She is a Research Associate of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, and is a Lecturer in the Art History Department at the University of Southern California. A former Vice President of the Archaeological Institute of America, Dr. Lyons serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Cultural Property, the American Journal of Archaeology, and the Journal of the History of Collections.
“For years now, we have had a collegial and productive working relationship with Claire in her current position at the Getty Research Institute,” explains Dr. Wight. “Over the course of her career, she has produced research papers and exhibitions that have contributed greatly to scholarship in the field of antiquities. I am looking forward to her becoming an integral part of the department in our unique setting at the Villa.”