Female Voices in Art: Chloé Pelletier, Curator of European Art (before 1800), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
"The women in our field are great team players. We support one another dutifully and with enthusiasm. It is rewarding to watch one another succeed."
Chloé M. Pelletier (b.1991, Rochester, NY, US) is the Curator of European Art (before 1800) at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where she stewards a collection of over 1600 European paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. After growing up in Texas, she completed her B.A. in art history at Johns Hopkins University and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. A specialist in Italian Renaissance painting, she has additional research interests in Dutch and Flemish art, environmental studies, and historiography. She is a Fulbright scholar and has held research and curatorial positions at institutions including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2024, she curated Spotlight: Women Artists in the Early Modern European Art Collection. Her current exhibition project, Bad Girls Only: Women and the Seven Deadly Sins, is on view until 10 August, 2025.
Could you tell us something about your role in the art world?
I have the lucky job of caring for, researching, interpreting, and growing the Museum’s collection of historical European art. The work is collaborative and exciting – every day brings something new!
What did you enjoy about being a part of this project?
I enjoyed the spontaneity, which left no time for vanity or belabored self-fashioning. Even more, I enjoyed getting to spend time with the other women that were photographed that day. It was a bright, unexpected moment of joy and connection.
Do you have a favourite artist?
Carlo Crivelli, the Italian Renaissance painter who left Venice early in his career and flourished in the provinces, developing a style wholly unique and delightfully strange. I decided to pursue a degree in art history after getting lost in the backgrounds of his paintings.
What is your earliest memory involving art?
I remember making little sculptures and jewelry out of cardboard, foil, and materials found around the house. I’ve always loved using my hands.
Do you have any special thoughts about the position of women in the art world?
The women in our field are great team players. We support one another dutifully and with enthusiasm. It is rewarding to watch one another succeed.
What are you wearing, and tell the story behind it?
Truth be told – I am wearing the last clean clothes in my suitcase. This photo was taken on day nine of a ten-day work trip. The gold jewelry is special, though. Each piece reminds me of different women in my life. The large hoops come from my mother-in-law, the small ones from a trip to Florence with my best friend. The cuff was a gift from a dear friend and colleague. But the necklace is most precious to me. It was my grandmother’s in Egypt and she gave it to me on my 18th birthday. I never take it off.
What are you currently working on?
I just opened an exhibition on 16th-century Dutch prints and drawings and am in the early stages of developing a project about the truth-value of images in Western art. I am interested in how people across time have grappled with art’s deceptive powers, especially thinking back from our current moment’s anxieties around AI.
Could you mention a project, an institution that, or a person who has been important or inspiring for your career and why?
So many! But the Art Institute of Chicago, both the collection and the people, have been especially instrumental in my career. It was serendipitous that I got to do this photo shoot with Jacquelyn Coutré, who I first met while interning at the Art Institute during my PhD. She is a rigorous scholar and generous colleague in equal measure, certainly an inspiration.
