Dr. Kymberly Newberry

Kymberly S. Newberry is an art historian and curator whose research centers contemporary African art as a site of disruption, examining the curatorial and institutional challenges of stewarding, interpreting, and displaying African art in Western museums. Her scholarship engages decolonial theory and confronts the legacies of colonial curatorial practices, foregrounding questions of representation, labor, and power in museum spaces.

Newberry holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in African American Studies from the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a B.A. in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College. She previously served as Visiting Instructor in Art History and Architectural Studies and Assistant Curator of Special Projects at Mount Holyoke College and Mount Holyoke College Art Museum.

A 2021 Mellon Fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership Seminar in Curatorial Practice, her curatorial practice bridges scholarship and activism. At Mount Holyoke, she curated And I Shall Spatter the Sky Utterly: Romuald Hazoumè, the first exhibition focused on contemporary African art and social activism in the Five College Consortium. She has curated BLACK WORK: Absence/Absorption at the Harnett Museum on the campus of the University of Richmond, an exhibition exploring Black material, spatial, and perceptual practices. At the Harnett Museum, she created An Apéritif at the Museum, an innovative public programming series that pairs works from the permanent collection with contemporary African and African American art to prompt new dialogues and ways of seeing.

She co-developed and teaches the inaugural Intro to Arts Management and Creative Industries course, bridging curatorial expertise with professional practice.

Her essay "Smuggle Gold and Cyclonic Hair: Transformative Power in the Work of Romuald Hazoumè" appears in Art Museums and the Legacies of the Dutch Slave Trade: Curating Histories, Envisioning Futures (Brill, 2025). She is currently developing a book manuscript examining docenting practices in museums and their implications for race and labor.

In 2007, Newberry founded "Siggi Dimanche," a cultural event celebrating Francophone African culture. She received a Certificate of Appreciation from the LA City Council for her contribution to the cultural fabric of Los Angeles. She continues this work in Richmond.