Maurita N. Poole holds a doctorate from Emory University in Anthropology. Her curatorial practice is shaped by her training at Williams College Museum of Art, The Walters Art Museum, The Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and Spelman College Museum of Fine Art.
Poole most recently served as director and curator at Clark Atlanta University Art Museum (CAUAM). As director, she strengthened the museum’s infrastructure and provided opportunities for the next generation of museum professionals. She created and managed the Tina Dunkley Fellowship in American Art, a collaborative Diversity in Art Museum Leadership Initiative (DAMLI) involving CAUAM, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), and the Zuckerman Museum of Art (ZMA). In addition, she developed the “Black Optics Artist Residency,” a platform that connects artists of African descent from the American South and Global South.
Her curatorial projects primarily focus on African and African Diaspora art. Her most recent exhibition is Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation (2023). In 2021, she curated the complementary exhibitions Wilay Mendez Paez: Notes from the Underground and Portals to a New World at The Atlanta Contemporary and CAUAM. Other noteworthy shows include Guy Gabon: L’Autre Bord/The Bridge of Beyond (2020), Crafting for Life (2019), Alfred Conteh: The Sweet Spot (2018), and Frederick D. Jones and The Social Surreal (2017).
She is an alum of the 2020 Center for Curatorial Leadership program.
