Albany Museum of Art Curator Will Pursue Her Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee
She Was the AMA’s First Curator of African Collections and African Diasporic Art
Sidney Pettice, the inaugural Curator of African Collections and African Diasporic Art at the Albany Museum of Art, is embarking on the next step in her career path as she pursues her Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee.
“I’ll be a Vol, a Volunteer. I’m going to the University of Tennessee to get my Ph.D. in American history, with a focus on African-American history. I’m so excited,” Pettice said, adding she plans to remain in the art field. “Ideally, one day I’d love to lead an institution. I think that’s my long-term goal.”
AMA Executive Director Andrew James Wulf, Ph.D., said that Pettice had an immediate positive impact on the institution upon joining the AMA staff in October 2023.
“Sidney has been an extraordinary colleague, whose intelligence, warmth, and generosity of spirit have enriched every aspect of the Albany Museum of Art,” Wulf said. “Through her scholarship, curatorial vision, and deep commitment to our community, she has helped us tell more expansive stories and become a more welcoming and relevant museum. She has set the gold standard for future curators who serve in this position. While we will miss her enormously, we are immensely proud of her and excited to see where her remarkable gifts and ambition will lead. Sidney will always remain a cherished member of the AMA family.”
Pettice worked with Director of Curator Affairs Katie Dillard. Together, they planned and installed exhibitions at the museum.
“It’s been great to work with her, and I’ve learned so much from her, especially about the hands-on aspects of it,” Pettice said. “Now, I feel so confident doing art installations and everything that comes with that, all the behind-the-scenes things that you wouldn’t think about.”
“It has been a genuine pleasure and a joy to work with Sidney. She brought such a brightness to work every day, but more importantly, she truly helped the AMA change the game in what it means to be a museum for everybody,” Dillard said. “I know wherever she goes next, she will continue to bring that brightness and take on every challenge with grace.”
Pettice came to the Albany Museum of Art position endowed by the Walter & Frances Bunzl Family Foundation after earning her M.A. in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York. She earned her B.A. in Art History in her home state from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began focusing on Ancient African Art History and expanding her education and scholarship to include the African Diaspora, both ancient and contemporary.
“I was really given such great creative freedom (at the AMA), and I’ve been able to accomplish so much,” Pettice said. “I’m appreciative of everyone here for encouraging that and giving me a platform. I’ve loved my time and how hands-on it’s been, and how much I’ve learned since I’ve been here.”
Asked what her best memories from her time in Albany are, Pettice pointed to two in particular.
“My first Art Ball was so much fun, and it was the 60th anniversary Art Ball, so it felt really special,” she said. “I didn’t really know what to expect. All I knew was this very highbrow New York gala where you kind of sit in silence, but here, our black-tie events feel so much more like coming together in celebration. It just happens to have fancy clothes. I really appreciate the environment that’s created with that.”
Another, she said, was the closing reception for the summer 2025 for Her Ladyship, Countess of Cumakala, which was South African artist Buqaqawuli Nobakada’s first solo exhibition in the United States. Pettice curated the exhibition, and Nobakada traveled to Albany to attend the closing.
“That closing was so great,” Pettice said. “I enjoyed seeing people line up to meet her and take photos with her. I thought that was a super-cool experience. Just to be the person who helped plan it, I was really proud of that event.”
Before joining the AMA, Pettice was published in the Atlanta-based art and criticism magazine Burnaway, and conducted archive-based research and organizational projects as a studio assistant for conceptual and performance artist Lorraine O’Grady. She also conducted a small archival research project at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, where she produced scholarship on the artist Selma Burke (1900-1995) for the museum’s institutional record.
In addition to her curatorial work at the AMA, Pettice headed the project for the downtown Albany mural The Cosmic Gospel Tour, honoring Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, and Albany native Ray Charles—one of 100 projects across the nation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts’ Celebrating America250: Arts Projects Honoring the National Garden of American Heroes program. She also worked with the South Georgia Archives at the Thronateeska Heritage Center on an oral history project that highlights several accounts of Albany, drawn from the narratives of key local historians and community organizers. The video of the project is on view in the current AMA exhibition Moments in the Good Life City, and will be included in the South Georgia Archives.
Pettice said her time at the AMA has gone by quickly, even as she looks to the future.
“Life always feels like it’s constantly being fast-forwarded,” she said. “Coming out of my graduate program in New York, I was like, OK, I’ll end up wherever I end up, but I really hope to be in the South. I’ll end up again wherever I end up, but, again, I hope it’s in the South and that I can continue the work that I’ve done in Southern institutions.”
