Courtesy of David Harvey

Curiosity Expert: David Harvey

Senior Vice President for Exhibition at American Museum of Natural History

David Harvey is an interpretive exhibition designer whose passion is creating compelling museum experiences for the public. First studying biology, and then switching to art, his interests have continued to oscillate between art and science; so eventually he thought, Why choose?

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he has designed nearly two dozen permanent galleries and scores of exhibitions to showcase the work of artists ranging from Degas to Sugimoto, Velazquez to Versace. For the famous Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art he designed a suite of eight new galleries for the Matisse collection.

Then he ventured across Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History and discovered it was equally exhilarating to spotlight Neanderthal skulls, live poisonous frogs, Peter the Great's diamond-studded crown, dinosaur femurs, the largest meteorite in captivity and Darwin's handwritten notebooks, although he has not yet figured out how to get all of these into a single exhibition.

His most recent exhibitions are Creatures of Light, Brain: The Inside Story, Traveling the Silk Road and Mythic Creatures. The Hall of Human Origins, Hall of Ocean Life, and Hall of Meteorites are just some of his permanent projects. In addition to drawing high attendance numbers in New York, his exhibitions are seen annually by over 2.5 million international visitors as exhibitions travel to museums worldwide. And in his spare time he teaches ITP graduate students how to do what he does.

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