Philadelphia Museum of Dance

Thom Collins

Executive Director and President of the Barnes Foundation

An innovative educator and accomplished art historian, administrator, and author, Mr. Collins, a Philadelphia native, has more than 20 years of experience at some of America’s top arts institutions, including the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM); the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York; the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore; the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati; the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since beginning his post as Executive Director and President of the Barnes Foundation in 2015, Collins has led both the development of a strategic plan—designed to advance institutional goals for the years ahead—and an expansion of the Barnes’s pioneering education program for adults; and curated two critically-acclaimed exhibitions Live and Life Will Give You Pictures: Masterworks of French Photography, 1890 – 1950 (2016) and Person of the Crowd: The Contemporary Art of Flânerie (2017).

Collins earned his MA in art history from Northwestern University and his BA with honors in art history and the history of religion from Swarthmore College. He serves on the Board of Trustees at Swarthmore College and is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Association of Art Museum Curators, and the College Art Association. He was recently nominated as one of Philadelphia Magazine’s 2017 “100 Most Influential Philadelphians.”