PRESS RELEASE
“NYU Names Alison Weaver as Director of the Grey Art Museum”
NYU News, January 27, 2026
The following article was originally published in NYU News on January 27, 2026.
NYU President Linda G. Mills and Provost Georgina Dopico today announced the appointment of Alison Weaver, the founding director of the Moody Cener for the Arts at Rice University, as the director of NYU’s cherished Grey Art Museum. She will take up her new duties on May 26, 2026.
President Mills said, “Few, if any, research universities have a deeper, more encompassing connection to the arts than NYU. NYU’s arts programming has been an engine for creativity that helps shape the cultural landscape. For 50 years, The Grey has been a core part of that—curating important exhibitions and making outsized contributions to the downtown New York arts scene.
Alison Weaver has been named the Director of NYU’s Grey Art Museum. Photo by Geoff Winningham.
“Alison Weaver clearly understands the important role that The Grey plays both within the NYU community and more broadly in the city’s arts community. She’s keenly sensitive to the variety of constituencies that a university-based art institution such as The Grey Museum needs to serve. Moreover, she brings a substantial track record of success as the founding director of the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University. We welcome her to NYU and are very pleased to have her here.”
Provost Dopico said, “Since its founding, The Grey has been not only a world-class university art venue, but also a cultural hub, a home of interdisciplinary scholarship, and a nexus of learning and discovery. A former New Yorker, Alison Weaver values The Grey’s history and grasps its potential for ongoing impact. And having spent the last decade at a large research university, she is superbly prepared to convene faculty, students, administrators, and community leaders to facilitate scholarship, make meaning of powerful art, and deepen the connection between NYU and the world beyond. I look forward to welcoming Alison to NYU.”
Weaver spent 10 years establishing and leading Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts in Houston, Texas, where she earned praise for original, innovative programming. As founding director she oversaw construction of its 50,000-square-foot building and conceived and curated more than 25 exhibitions and associated public programs in support of its interdisciplinary mission. She concurrently directed Rice’s public art program, realizing site-specific commissions, permanent acquisitions, and temporary programs, and secured transformative philanthropic support for exhibitions, operations, and endowments to ensure the Moody’s activities are free and open to all. She had previously taught art history at the City University of New York while pursuing her MPhil degree. Prior to that, she had been director of affiliates for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, where she oversaw the museum’s programs and operations in Berlin, Bilbao, Venice, and Las Vegas, and managed the departments of Exhibition Management, Registration, Art Services and Library and Archives in New York. She succeeds Lynn Gumpert, who retired last year.
Weaver said, “The Grey Art Museum occupies a unique position at the intersection of rigorous scholarship, contemporary artistic practice, and public engagement. As the museum enters this important next chapter in its new home, I’m excited to work with NYU’s extraordinary faculty, students, and staff to expand The Grey’s role as a laboratory for ideas and a vital cultural resource for the city.”
Weaver earned a BA from Princeton University, an MA in art history from Williams College, an MPhil in art history from the City University of New York, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. She served as co-chair of the Houston Museum District and as a trustee for Texans for the Arts, playing an active role in advancing arts advocacy and fostering institutional collaboration across Houston’s cultural community.
About The Grey Art Museum
The Grey Art Museum—which is located in 14,000 square feet of space at 18 Cooper Square—is NYU’s fine arts museum. It is a museum/laboratory with a mission to spark interdisciplinary scholarship, including scholarship involving its renowned collection of more than 6,000 pieces. Previously housed in NYU’s Silver Center on the east side of Washington Square Park, it was named in honor of Abby Weed Grey, whose gift in the mid-1970’s helped establish it.
The Grey’s exhibitions have encompassed a wide range of visual arts: painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking, photography, architecture and decorative arts, video, film, and performance. In addition to originating its own exhibitions, some of which travel throughout the United States and abroad, the museum hosts traveling shows that might otherwise not be seen in New York. Award-winning scholarly publications, distributed worldwide, are published by The Grey Art Museum. In conjunction with its exhibitions, The Grey also sponsors public programs, including lectures, symposia, panel discussions, and films. It is currently hosting an exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg prints related to the environmental movement and an exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal painting from the Australian desert; an exhibition of work by June Leaf recently closed.