Dr. LeRonn P. Brooks

Dr. LeRonn P. Brooks is the Associate Curator for Modern and Contemporary Collections (specializing in African American collections) at the Getty Research Institute. Dr. Brooks is a specialist in African American art, poetics, performance, and Africana Studies. Prior to working at the Getty he was an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Lehman College and a curator for The Racial Imaginary Institute, founded by poet Claudia Rankine. He received his B.F.A. in Painting form Hunter College and his Ph.D. in Twentieth Century American Art from The Graduate Center, CUNY. His scholarly interests focus on African American art and art of the African Diaspora and the Afro-Atlantic world. At the Getty, Dr. Brooks is the lead-curator for the GRI’s African American Art History Initiative (AAAHI) and is charged with building collections—sourcing original art historical documents and acquiring artist archives—and organizing programming related to African American art. At the GRI, Dr. Brooks co-curator for the archives of Betye Saar, the Johnson Publishing Company, the architect Paul Revere Williams and distinguished scholar, Dr. Robert Farris Thompson. His interviews, essays on African American art, and poetry have appeared in publications for Bomb Magazine, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Spelman Museum of Art, Callaloo Journal, The International Review of African American Art as well as The Aperture Foundation, among others.