Michelle Rich

Dr. Michelle Rich is the Ellen and Harry S. Parker III Assistant Curator of the Arts of the Americas at the Dallas Museum of Art. Rich joined the DMA after holding two Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellowships at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where she curated Ancient Bodies: Archaeological Perspectives on Mesoamerican Figures (2017), and the San Antonio Museum of Art. Since 2003, she has conducted archaeology with the US–Guatemalan Proyecto Arqueológico El Perú-Waka´ (PAW). She specializes in ancient Maya and Mesoamerican art and figurines, and ritual objects and architecture. Recent publications include Expanding the Canon: Lady K'abel the Ix Kaloomte’ and the Political Narratives of Classic Maya Queens (Navarro‐Farr, Kelly, Rich, and Pérez Robles 2020) and Statecraft in the City of the Centipede: Burials 39, 38, and Internal Alliance Building at El Perú-Waka', Guatemala (Rich and Eppich 2020). She is currently writing and editing a publication showcasing more than 100 masterpieces of Indigenous art from the DMA’s ancient Americas collection, refreshing the Arts of the Americas galleries, and is the venue curator for an exhibition that recently opened at the DMA called Spirit Lodge: Mississippian Art from Spiro.