Headshot of Sandra Jackson-Dumont

Sandra Jackson-Dumont joined the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art as director and CEO in January 2020. Tasked with leading the institution through its opening and beyond, Jackson-Dumont came to the Lucas Museum from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she served as the Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chairman of Education from 2014 to 2019.

At the Lucas Museum, Jackson-Dumont oversees wide-ranging programming and operational teams and will manage a staff of more than 230 by the time the museum opens. She leads the curatorial, museum experience, education, and collections management teams in exploring the more than 100,000 works of art in the collections and developing exhibitions and programs for the museum’s extensive gallery and classroom spaces. The Lucas Museum broke ground in March 2018 in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park, and Jackson-Dumont also works with the architecture and construction teams to bring architect Ma Yansong’s vision for the 11-acre campus and 300,000-square-foot building to life. Jackson-Dumont reports to the Lucas Museum’s board of directors.

Throughout her career, Jackson-Dumont has developed programming around museum collections and special exhibitions to engage a broad range of audiences, from school-age children and their teachers to artists and scholars. At The Met, Jackson-Dumont conceived of and managed an array of dynamic public programs, community engagement and academic initiatives, and live arts performances for diverse audiences. Jackson-Dumont also served for eight years as the deputy director for education and public programs and adjunct curator of modern and contemporary art at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). There, she oversaw educational public programs, interpretive technology, and community affairs across the museum’s three venues, as well as organized significant exhibitions and collaborative projects on the work of Theaster Gates, Titus Kaphar, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Sondra Perry, among others. Prior to that, Jackson-Dumont held positions at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among other cultural organizations.

Known for her ability to blur the lines between academia, popular culture, and non-traditional art-going communities, Jackson-Dumont is invested in curating experiences that foster dynamic exchanges between art/artists, past/present, public/private, and people/places. She has organized numerous exhibitions, lectures, performances, symposia, and education initiatives and has contributed essays to a host of publications and worked with numerous artists.

Jackson-Dumont’s past projects include: Aaron Fowler: Into Existence, 2019; Sondra Perry: Eclogue for [in]HABITABILITY, 2017; Brenna Youngblood: Abstracted Realities, 2015/16; LaToya Ruby Frazier: Born By a River, 2014; machupicchu afterdark, a site-specific installation by contemporary Afro-Peruvian artist William Cordova, 2013/14; We Will Blow the Roof Off The Mother, a site-specific installation for the Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park, 2013; Theaster Gates: The Listening Room, 2011; Record Store, a roving social practice project initially installed in an urban storefront in partnership with Olson Kundig Architects featuring listening parties hosted by a wide cross-section of artists, curators, community/public figures, cultural producers, and others, 2011/12; Xenobia Bailey: the aesthetics of funk, an exhibition at the Northwest African American Museum, 2011; and Titus Kaphar: History in the Making, 2009.

Jackson-Dumont’s past awards and honors include: the Medal for Distinguished Service from Columbia University’s Teachers College, 2016; the Distinguished Alumni Award from Sonoma State University, 2015; the Creative Leadership Award from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, 2013; the Community Leader of the Year Finalist for the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, 2012; and the Women of Color Empowered Award, 2012. She was included in Seattle Magazine’s Most Influential People, 2010; The Smartest People in Seattle’s Politics, 2013; and the 25 Influential Black Women in Business for The Network Journal, 2015. Jackson-Dumont currently serves on the boards of Seattle’s Friends of the Waterfront Project and New York’s Friends of the High Line. She is also an independent curator/writer and programming consultant working across communities, disciplines, and sectors. A native of San Francisco, Jackson-Dumont received her B.A. in art history from Sonoma State University in California and her M.A. in art history from Howard University in Washington, D.C.