Kimberly Drew is an American

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

influencer and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

. She is best known as the former social media manager for the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

and her use of the social media handle MuseumMammy. Drew released her first book, ''This Is What I Know About Art'' in June 2020, as part of a children series from Penguin, and published an anthology titled ''Black Futures'' with ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' staff writer

Jenna Wortham Jenna Wortham is an American journalist. They work as a culture writer for ''The New York Times Magazine'' and co-hosts ''The New York Times'' podcast '' Still Processing'' with Wesley Morris. In 2020, with Kimberly Drew, Wortham published '' Bla ...

in December 2020.

Early life and education

Drew grew up in Orange, New Jersey in a family of artists. In 2008, she graduated from the

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island. During her second year at

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...

, Drew had an internship at

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

with

Thelma Golden Thelma Golden (born 1965 in St. Albans, Queens) is the Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City, United States. Golden joined the Museum as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs in 2000 before succeeding ...

, which influenced her later choice of concentration and informed her career path. In 2012, Drew graduated from

with a B.A. in

Art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

and Africana studies, and a concentration in Museum Studies.

Career

In March 2011, Drew started the

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

blog Black Contemporary Art while still in college. She and others posted about black artists who were featured on museum websites but had no digital presence on Tumblr, so that they "were part of a recorded history." Drew has referred to herself as a "a

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

of "black art and experiences" and has been recognized by

Artsy Artsy, formally known as Art.sy Inc is a New York City based online art brokerage. Its main business is developing and hosting website for numerous galleries as well as selling art for them. It utilizes a search engine and database to draw conn ...

for advocating for racial equality in the art world. She has spoken about the importance of tying art to activism and protests, specifically in the immediate aftermath of the high-profile murders of Black Americans such as

George Floyd George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit twe ...

and

Ahmaud Arbery On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was murdered during a racially motivated hate crime while jogging in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia.

, and the shootings of Breonna Taylor and

Tony McDade On May 27, 2020, after 11 a.m., a 38-year-old African-American transgender man, Tony McDade, was fatally shot in the Leon Arms apartment complex by an officer of the Tallahassee Police Department, following the fatal stabbing of Malik Jackson o ...

. In July 2015, Drew was hired as the Associate Online Community Producer at the

in New York City. She held the position until November 2019. In 2016, Drew curated the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

's Instagram account during the 2016 South by South Lawn festival. That July, Drew, along with writer
Taylor Renee Aldridge
an
Jessica Lynne
and art historia
Jessica Bell Brown
organized a project called Black Art Incubator, a two-month long program of book exchanges, art critiques, and panel discussions. In 2018, Drew modeled for the Chromat Spring/Summer 2019 runway during

New York Fashion Week New York Fashion Week (NYFW), held in February and September of each year, is a semi-annual series of events in Manhattan typically spanning 7–9 days when international fashion collections are shown to buyers, the press, and the general publ ...

. In February 2022, the Pace Gallery announced that Drew would be joining as Associate Director.

Books

Beginning their connection through Twitter’s direct-messaging, Drew co-edited and released the anthology ''Black Futures'' with journalist

. After five years in the making, the collective book encapsulates a multitude of art forms by more than 100 Black creators responding to the question, “What does it mean to be Black and alive, right now?” Their creation stamps a time when the height of Black empowerment coexists with longing systemic oppression. Drew and Wortham’s goal is to bring to light how Black culture surrounds everyday society and how Blackness is limitless. ''Black Futures'' was published by Chris Jackson's One World imprint at

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

in December 2020. On June 2, 2020, Drew released her first book, ''This Is What I Know About Art,'' a book for young adults under the

Penguin Workshop Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initially ...

imprint.

Personal life

Drew resides in Brooklyn and is a lesbian. Her partner is

Chase Strangio Chase Strangio (; born October 29, 1982) is an American lawyer and transgender rights activist. He is the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice and staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Early life and education Strang ...

, a civil rights lawyer.

References

External links

Black Contemporary Art blogKimberly Drew
on Instagram {{DEFAULTSORT:Drew, Kimberly Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American women 21st-century African-American women writers 21st-century American women writers 21st-century African-American writers People associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art Smith College alumni American women bloggers American bloggers American art curators American women curators African-American activists People from Orange, New Jersey American LGBT writers LGBT African Americans Queer writers Activists from New Jersey St. George's School (Rhode Island) alumni