Tamara Northern

Senior Curator;Hood Museum

SINCE THE MID-SEVENTIES Tamara Northern has been the College's gateway to its growing world of ethnographic art. Curator, teacher, and steward, Northern introduces students and faculty to the cultural meanings and artistic merits of the Hood's 30,000 pieces of African, Native-American, Oceanic, and other ethnographic art. She calls African art her "intellectual home," but mention Southwestern pottery to Northern and she says, "You could lock me up with a collection, and I wouldn't emerge for days." Whatever the collection, she teaches students that what matters most is to "work with an object with full respect for its cultural context."

Hood curator Tamara Northern removes cultural blinders.