Michelle Elligott

Michelle Elligott has been Chief of Archives, Library, and Research Collections at The Museum of Modern Art since 2017, overseeing all activities related to acquisition, preservation, access, and research. Previously, she was Chief of Archives. Her research interests include mining the archives for the overlooked or untold, contemporary artist interventions in the archives, and exhibition histories. Her award-winning publications include Modern Artifacts (2020), René d’Harnoncourt and The Art of Installation (2018), and Art in Our Time: A Chronicle of The Museum of Modern Art (2004), and her curatorial projects include Frank O’Hara: Lunchtime Poet (2019) at MoMA, Devenir modern (2017) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, and 1969 (2009) at MoMA PS1. In 2016, she co-directed the development of MoMA’s widely acclaimed Exhibition History on moma.org. Ms. Elligott was a Center for Curatorial Leadership International Fellow in 2016, and a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, in 2005. She holds a BA from Smith College and an MA from Hunter College, CUNY, both in art history, and she attended the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.