Kimberly Camp

The Barnes Foundation was created as a school in 1925 by Dr. Albert C. Barnes.

It has the largest collections in the world of works by Renoir and Cézanne, and more Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse paintings and drawings than all the museums in Paris combined.

With approximately 9000 works of art, the Barnes is the first purposefully multicultural collection of decorative, folk and fine art in the United States, including international artists Claude Monet, Tintoretto, Giorgione, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, and American painters William Glackens, Horace Pippin, Charles and Maurice Prendergast.

Camps research into the Foundation's history was critical in winning court approval to relocate the foundation to Philadelphia Pennsylvania.

Under her leadership, the Foundation's operations were professionalized to include conservation and a full inventory of the collections, cataloguing of the Foundation's archives, restoration of Kerfeal and the Merion arboretum, and restoration of the education programs.

Camp lectures at colleges, universities and museums based on her research, to dispel entrenched beliefs and mythologies about the Foundation and its founder Barnes, a chemist and philanthropist who remained a staunch advocate for ending racial discrimination and social justice.

Camp's manuscript titled Defending the Dead, includes a detailed account of the professionalization of the Foundation and its legal challenges during her tenure.

Kimberly Camp (September 11, 1956) is an artist and museum leader known for her one-of-a kind dolls and paintings, and leading influential museums and museum projects.

Kimberly Camp was born on September 11, 1956, in Camden, New Jersey, the only child of Dr. Hubert Camp, an oral surgeon and jazz trumpeter, and Marie Dimery Camp.

Surrounded with the arts during her childhood, her exposure to the arts was augmented by the world class museums in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Camp was enrolled in private painting lessons and participated in her first exhibition at the age of 12.

She later studied painting with Austrian painter Alexandria Laimer and Friends School Mullica Hill as part of the school's first graduating class.

Camp attended American University from 1973 to 1974 then transferred to University of Pittsburgh, where she earned her bachelor's degree in studio arts and art history.

In 1983, Camp created a mural program called the Artistic Design Project, a first for the City of Camden.

Camp participated in the creation of the Camden Annual Art Exhibition, at Rutgers University Camden Center for the Arts Stedman Gallery.

She served on the board of the Walt Whitman Arts Center, and was an editor for the Philadelphia Chapter, National Conference of Artists, the oldest Black art organization in the United States.

While attending Drexel University, Camp received a National Endowment Fellowship in Arts Management, in the Expansion Arts Program.

Camp earned a Master of Science degree in arts administration from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1986.

From 1986 to 1989 she served as program director for arts education and minority arts services at the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts.

Camp joined the Association of American Cultures (TAAC), the first national multicultural art organization in the US and served as vice chair of the board of directors.

She was the founding director of the Smithsonian Institution Experimental Gallery (1989–1993), president and CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (1994–1998) in Detroit, president and CEO of the Barnes Foundation (1998–2005) in Merion, Pennsylvania and director of the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center, a project of the Richland Public Facilities District.

Her paintings and dolls have been featured in over 100 exhibitions in the United States and internationallt.

Her dual career as an artist and museum leader administrator has earned her acclaim in both fields.

In May 1989, Camp joined the Smithsonian Institution as director of the Experimental Gallery.

The gallery presented eighteen exhibitions in the Arts and Industries Building from its opening in 1991 until 1995.

The Smithsonian Institution Experimental Gallery was an initiative of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Museums.

Conceived of by Elaine Heumann Gurian, the gallery served as a dynamic space for experimentation and innovation in exhibition design and presentation, context, interpretive strategies, physical and psychological access in the arts, humanities and sciences.

Camp completed the vision of the gallery to have each exhibition signed by its creators, and used post-it notes to gather public comments within the gallery.

Camp created the administrative framework for the gallery which hosted the National Air and Space Museum's "Principles of Flight" exhibition, "Finding Ones Way" by the Exploratorium, "Etiquette of the Underclass" by Antenna Theater, and others.

The gallery also served as a model for diversifying Smithsonian museum attendance.

In 1994, Camp became executive director then president and CEO of the Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan.

The gallery closed in 1995.

Camp oversaw the expansion of the museum and construction of the new 125,000 square foot facility which opened to the public in 1997 as the largest Black museum in the world.

She was instrumental in the design and planning for its inaugural exhibition "Of the People," which at the time was the largest exhibition ever mounted to tell the African American story.

Weeks before its opening, the museum's name changed to the Charles Wright Museum of African American History and Culture in recognition of its founder, Dr. Charles Wright.

In 1998, Camp became the first museum professional to serve as president and CEO of the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania.

Camp moved to eastern Washington in 2007 to become the first executive director of the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center, a project of the Richland Public Facilities District.

The Foundation was moved to Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 2012.

Controversy over the move began years before because of challenges from Lower Merion Township's zoning laws that restricted visitation.

Camp's research became the basis for the legal petitions to relocate the Foundation to the Parkway, dispelling the widely held misinformation that Dr. Barnes' last will and testament was altered and that the Foundation's move was due to impending bankruptcy.