Ellenor Alcorn

Ellenor Alcorn is Chair and Eloise W. Martin Curator of Applied Arts of Europe at the Art Institute of Chicago, a position she assumed in September 2018. She and her team recently undertook a reimagining of the permanent collection galleries covering the years 1630–1880. 

Before joining the Art Institute, Ellenor was a curator in European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she served as lead curator for the renovation of the British Galleries and had ongoing responsibility for the collections of British and French silver (including gold boxes) as well as base metalwork. Her exhibitions at the Met include “Victorian Electrotypes: Old Treasures, New Technology” and “British Silver, The Wealth of a Nation.” Ellenor began her career at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and has also worked independently, serving as consulting curator for the Gans Collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, among other curatorial and research endeavors.

She holds a BA from Bard College and an MA in Medieval Studies from the University of York.