Art Education Leads to Museum Leadership: Joshua Johnson ’12

An art degree from Dominican University put Joshua Johnson ’12 on the path to a top position at one of the Midwest’s premier art museums. 

This year, Johnson was named co-senior curator of Davenport, Iowa’s Figge Art Museum, where he has worked in various roles since arriving as a graduate assistant in 2015. He is responsible for acquiring, documenting, researching, exhibiting and caring for all works in the museum’s collection, which today totals over 6,000 pieces. 

The Figge is known for holding one of the largest Haitian art collections in the country, a rich Spanish colonial collection, the Grant Wood archive, and collections of photography, decorative arts and contemporary works. 

“My favorite part of this position is working with living artists on exhibitions,” Johnson shared. “I’m able to help them fulfill their vision of what their exhibition should look like while also advising them on ways to engage our community.”

In a world where STEM careers are highly sought after, Johnson believes art education is as valuable as ever.

“We’ve seen all sorts of research on the importance of having imaginative and inventive people in the workforce, even if they aren’t drawing and painting every day,” Johnson said. “An arts education helps give you the training to think creatively, which is applicable to many different careers.”

Johnson, who studied sculpture, painting and drawing at Dominican, credits his professors with helping him get to where he is today. 

“They were exposing me to the entire breadth of contemporary art, while also giving me a firm foundation in art history,” he said. “There was an emphasis on a wide range of artistic materials and techniques, and these come into my explanation of works in the collection (at the Figge) today.”