TOLEDO, Ohio, January 3, 2023: With the support of a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) has named Adero Kauffmann-Okoko as a Kress Interpretive Fellow. The fellowship is a 12-month position designed to foster career development in museum education by providing an early career professional a range of practical, firsthand experiences in a dynamic, supportive environment.
“We sought an innovative, community- and diversity-minded, aspiring museum professional for this fellowship in interpretation,” said Adam Levine, the Toledo Museum of Art’s Edward Drummond and Florence Scott Libbey director. “Kauffmann-Okoko is an excellent fit for this position and will have a key role as part of our agile, dedicated cross-departmental team.”
“Working towards a goal to broaden the narrative of art history, TMA is in the planning stages of a full reinstallation and reinterpretation of its world-class collections for the first time in 40 years. Guided by the Museum’s values of diversity, community, innovation and trust, TMA aims to blend scholarship with equity and inclusion in paradigm-shifting ways to become the model museum in the country for its commitment to quality and culture of belonging. Under the mentorship of the manager of gallery interpretation and learning, Kauffman-Okoko will support this robust initiative through collaboration with the Museum’s curators and staff in the departments of learning and interpretation, collections, and belonging and engagement.
“Adero Kauffmann-Okoko, a graduate of Swarthmore College, comes to TMA from the Dallas Museum of Art where she served as a verbal description writer and the McDermott intern. At Swarthmore she was the recipient of the Margaret Mccain Ford ’43 Scholarship, the Jane Hausman and Geoffrey M. B.’75 Troy Scholarship and the Charles F. Barber Scholarship.
“I look forward to contributing my knowledge and experience to TMA’s transformative project while continuing to develop my understanding of how the concepts of inclusivity and accessibility can be practically applied within the art world and utilized to broaden the narrative of art history,” said Kauffmann-Okoko.
Kress Interpretive Fellowships at Art Museums program
The purpose of the Kress Interpretive Fellowships at Art Museums program is to provide a new kind of mentored professional development opportunity within American art museums and to encourage students to explore interpretive careers in art museums, whether as future museum educators or curators; to strengthen the profession of museum educator within the art museum community; to strengthen ties between museum educators and curators in the shared task of interpretive programming in art museums; and to expand the range of promising career options available to students of art history and related fields.
Kress Interpretive Fellowships provide competitive grants to American art museums which sponsor supervised internships in art museum education. Where appropriate, preference may be given to institutional applications that will provide fellows with an opportunity to collaborate closely with both art museum educators and curators and will advance the appreciation of European art history of the pre-modern era.
Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is a nonprofit arts institution funded through individual donations, foundation grants, corporate sponsorships and investments.
Admission to the museum is always free, but visitors are required to register at the Information Desks when they arrive. The museum is open Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. The museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and on certain holidays.
The museum is located at 2445 Monroe St. at Scottwood Avenue, just west of the downtown business district and one block off I-75, with exit designations posted. For general information, visitors can call 419-255-8000 or 800-644-6862, or visit toledomuseum.org.