RAFAEL CARDENAS
East Los Angeles College announced today that Pilar Tompkins—the former coordinator of curatorial initiatives at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art—has been hired as director of the college’s Vincent Price Art Museum. She starts her new job May 17.
Tompkins has worked as an L.A.-based curator and arts administrator since 2002, organizing shows in and outside of the United States with a range of institutions, including not only LACMA, but the Getty Research Institute, the Watts Towers Arts Center for the Department of Cultural Affairs in L.A., the UCLA Fowler Museum, and the City of Los Angeles.
She is currently co-curating “Home—So Different, So Appealing” and “A Universal History of Infamy” for the Pacific Standard Time: LA-LA initiative, which the Getty Foundation started to forge correspondences between the art scenes of L.A. and Latin American). It launches in 2017.
Tompkins is noted for both launching and codirecting the UCLA-LACMA Art History Practicum Initiative and the Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellowship program at LACMA.
Regarding her recent appointment, the college’s president, Marvin Martinez, said in a release, “The Vincent Price Art Museum and our entire campus community will benefit from the experience and passion that Ms. Tompkins Rivas brings. She will undoubtedly help strengthen our museum’s reputation and continue to build on its momentum as it evolves into one of L.A.’s top museums.”