Sims was on the education and curatorial staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1972 to 1999.[5] She said her mission "was to make sure that artists of color and overlooked white artists were represented in the museum's collection."[6] She participated in the organization of several exhibitions including Ellsworth Kelly (1979), John Marin: Selected Works from the Museum's Collection (1981), Henry Moore: 60 Years of His Art (1983), and Charles Burchfield (1984). In 1991, she curated Stuart Davis, American Painter, and she was the principal author of the catalogue. In 1995, Ms. Sims coordinated the Museum's venue of the exhibition I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin, organized by the Museum of the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, and curated Paul Cadmus: The Seven Deadly Sins and Selections from the Collection. In 1997, Dr. Sims curated the exhibition Richard Pousette-Dart, 1916–1992 and coordinated Francesco Clemente: Indian Watercolors organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. In 1999, she organized Hans Hofmann in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and coordinated the exhibition Barbara Chase-Riboud: Monument Drawings, organized by the St. John's Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Sims also organized several exhibitions from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in cooperation with the American Federation of Arts, for which she was also involved in writing catalogues: The Figure in Twentieth Century Art: Selections from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1985), The Landscape in Twentieth Century Art: Selections from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1991), American Still Life Painting (1995). For more than a decade, Sims also was responsible for the annual installation of the Museum's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, including the 1999 installation, Abakanowicz on the Roof.
The Studio Museum in Harlem
From 2000 to 2007, Sims was executive director, then president, of The Studio Museum in Harlem and served as adjunct curator for the permanent collection.[6] She was the coordinating curator for the 2003 exhibition, Challenge of the Modern: African American Artists, 1925–1945, and Fred Brown: Icons and Heroes (2003), which she originally curated for the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.
Sims is the retired curator emerita[7] at the Museum of Arts and Design, where between 2007 and 2015, she served as the Charles Bronfman International Curator and then the William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator. At MAD, Sims co-curated "Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary" (2008) and "Dead or Alive: Artists Respond to Nature" (2010). She also conceived and co-curated "The Global Africa Project" (2010–11) and "Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft and Design" which opened in March 2013. In 2014, she curated the exhibitions "Maryland to Murano: Neckpieces and Sculptures by Joyce J. Scott," and "New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft and Art in Latin America."
While at the Studio Museum, Sims served as chair of the Cultural Institutions Group, a coalition of botanical gardens, historic sites, museums and zoos funded by the City of New York. She also served on panels for the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York City, The Metropolitan Life Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities. In 1981, Ms. Sims was elected member of the Commission on the Status of Women of the City of New York, and in 1987 was appointed for a five-year term to the New York State Council on the Arts by GovernorMario Cuomo. She has served on the board of Art Table, Inc., and the Caribbean Cultural Center and the advisory committee of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School for Social Research, and the advisory committee of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. She is currently on the boards of the Art Matters, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation[11] and Art 21. In 1993, she was elected to the board of the College Art Association for a four-year term, and was co-chair of the studio art program for the 1994 annual conference of the CAA. In 2003 and 2004, she served on the jury for the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition to choose the memorial for the World Trade Center site. In 2006 and 2015, she was the James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art keynote speaker.[12]
Bibliography
Sims, L. S. & Davis, S. (1991). Stuart Davis: American Painter. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Sims, L. S., Rewald, S., Lieberman, W. S., & American Federation of Arts. (1996). Still Life: The Object in American Art, 1915-1995: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Rizzoli.
Sims, L. S., & Bearden, R. (1993). Romare Bearden. New York, N.Y.: Rizzoli Publications.
Sims, L. S., & Lam, W. (2002). Wifredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde, 1923-1982. Austin, Tex: University of Texas Press.
Sims, L.S. (editor). (2008). Fritz Scholder: Indian Not Indian. Washington, DC, and New York, NY: Smithsonian Institution and New York, N.Y.: Prestel.
Sims, L. S., Ramírez, M. C., Rangel, G., Rivas, J., Basha, R., Pope, N. L., Lopes, F., ... Museum of Arts and Design (New York, N.Y.). (2014). New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft and Art in Latin America.
Sims, L. S., Carr, D., & Museum of Fine Arts. (2015). Common Wealth: Art by African Americans in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston: MFA Publications.
Sims, L. S. and Sims, Patterson. (2018). Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths. Hamilton, New Jersey: Grounds for Sculpture.
Notes
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Sims, Lowery Stokes (2011). NoPlaceans and Empathics. Hartford: Real Art Ways. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013. Retrieved 9 March 2013.