Eiteljorg Names Chief Curatorial Officer
Elisa Phelps
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art has named Elisa Phelps vice president and chief curatorial officer. She will start her new duties in November.
For the past 14 years, Phelps has served as director of collections and library departments at History Colorado in Denver. In that role, she has had overall management of the curatorial, collections and library departments, and supervised a staff of 14. Phelps and her staff made History Colorado’s collections available to the public through an online portal. She initiated public outreach activities, oversaw the relocation of museum collections to new facilities, worked on grant proposals and ensured compliance with federal laws that protect Native American objects.
Phelps succeeds James Nottage, who retired in June after 17 years as vice president and chief curatorial officer.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in Southwest studies and anthropology from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, and a master’s in museum studies from the University of Leicester in Leicester, England. Phelps served as curator of anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science from 1987 to 1998 and as director of collections and curator of anthropology at the Witte Museum in San Antonio from 1998 to 2003.