The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City recently named its first full-time associate curator of Native American arts, Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha), a former assistant professor of American Indian Studies at UW-Eau Claire.

Norby specializes in Native American art history and visual culture and taught historical and contemporary Native American art history and culture to graduate and undergraduate students. “I am delighted with this opportunity to return to my fine-art roots,” Norby said in a press release.

“Historical and contemporary Native American art embodies and confronts the environmental, religious, and economic disruptions that Indigenous communities have so powerfully negotiated – and still negotiate – through a balance of beauty, tradition, and innovation. I am deeply honored to join with American Indian and Indigenous artists and communities in advancing our diverse experiences.”