Kynaston McShine

Kynaston Leigh Gerard McShine (February 20, 1935 – January 8, 2018) was a Trinidadian born curator and public speaker. His visions about contemporary art made lasting contributions to the lives of countless artists and colleagues at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City where he worked from 1959 to 2008. He is said to be the first curator of color at a major American museum and at his retirement he had risen to the position of chief curator at large of painting and sculpture.

Early life and education Born Kynaston Leigh Gerard McShine to Leonora Pujadas and Austen Hutton McShine, Kynaston McShine was the elder of two children. Pujadas was president and founder of the League of Women Voters in Trinidad while his father was president of a bank. from 1965–68, and served as acting director there from 1967-68. In his review of the show, New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer called Primary Structures "one of those exhibitions that defines a period and fixes it irrevocably in one's consciousness."

In 2003, McShine was the recipient of the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence.

From 1965-1968 McShine taught at Hunter College.

Projects series McShine began MoMA's Projects series that focuses on small scale experimental work by emerging artists. The first exhibition in the series was work by artist Keith Sonnier, and continued with work by artists like Jonathan Borofsky, Sam Gilliam, Bill Beckley and Rafael Ferrer.

Controversies In 1984, McShine curated An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture at MoMA. The exhibition purported to present the most notable recent work in contemporary art. Of 165 artists in the show, only 13 were women, spurring a group of women artists of the time to form Guerrilla Girls, who continue their activist performance and multi-media work today.

Personal life McShine was photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1988.