As Curator at Large, Peabody advises on special projects by contributing expertise in global 20th and 21st century art. She conceives and curates exhibitions, authors publications, organizes programs and identifies and proposes acquisitions.

At PEM, Peabody is the curator of long term installation projects Bethany Collins: America, A Hymnal (2023-) and Vanessa Platacis: Taking Place (2019-). She is co-curator of The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming (2021) and contributor to Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love (2021), Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger (2021), and Playtime(2017). Peabody is coordinating curator of Gio Swaby: Fresh Up! (2023), Hans Hoffman: The Nature of Abstraction (2019), and the nationally touring Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle (2020-2021)— to which she was a significant contributor to the exhibition and award winning publication. Her writing can be seen with Demeter Press, Boston Art Review, Hyperallergic and Artforum.

She is currently working on the upcoming exhibition Ethiopia at the Crossroads (2024) by overseeing the inclusion of work by renowned contemporary artists such as Julie Mehretu and Aïda Muluneh.

With over 12 years of institutional experience, Peabody continues to demonstrate her commitment to diversifying the Museum’s collection through the acquisition of artwork by emerging artists, artists of color, and women artists such as Bethany Collins, Hank Willis Thomas, Steve Locke, Frances Denny and Gio Swaby.

Peabody holds a dual Masters Degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism and Art Administration and Policy, and a Bachelor of Arts in Arts Administration from Simmons University.

Lydia is deeply committed to the mentoring of future generations through her work. Outside of PEM, she is Associate Professor of Art History at Montserrat College of Art (Beverly, MA). In 2021, Peabody was appointed to the board of The Wolf Kahn Foundation where she Chairs the Grants committee.

Lydia lives with her husband Charlie near the beach on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

Karen has been the Lane Curator of Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston since 2001, where she is responsible for a large collection of photographs by American modernists, Charles Sheeler, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and Imogen Cunningham.

The Lane Collection numbers more than 6,000 prints and ranges across the entire history of western photography. Her MFA activities include exhibitions, such as Make Believe; Ansel Adams in Our Time; (un)expected families; Charles Sheeler from Doylestown to Detroit; Imogen Cunningham: In Focus; Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott; Edward Weston: Leaves of Grass; and Bruce Davidson: East 100th Street.

Karen has recently completed a book on the early work of Edward Weston, and her other publications include An Enduring Vision: Photographs from the Lane Collection; Common Wealth: Art by African Americans in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Ansel Adams; and The Photography of Charles Sheeler: American Modernist.

Ariel is a curator and writer working in San Francisco. She graduated with a BFA in Art History from the University of Utah in 2011, and with an MA in Exhibition and Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2013. Her thesis, titled In the Temple of the Screen: Religiosity and Pedagogy in Cult Cinema, was awarded the Excellence in Scholarship Masters Thesis award. Ariel has been the co-curator of the Artist’s Television Access Window Gallery since 2013, Assistant Curator of the Museum of Craft and Design since 2014, and was promoted to Curator of the Museum of Craft and Design in 2020.

Ariel’s research focuses on contemporary craft applied to queer and feminist studies. She is also interested in medium specificity, photography, performance, and video practices. In 2019, she curated a five-person group exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Design, Interior/Exterior, served as one of three jurors for Bridging the Gap: Contemporary Craft Practices at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee, and published a brief article in American Craft Magazine. In 2020, she was appointed to the Board of Artists Television Access, and her writing was published in Surface Design Journal and Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles. In 2021, her writing appeared in Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, and she co-curated Mode Brut, an exhibition featuring more than 50 artists for the Museum of Craft and Design.