With unwavering attention to detail and boundless enthusiasm, she manages the day-to-day administration and logistics of one of our largest and busiest curatorial departments, Painting and Sculpture of Europe. Zahra not only helps ensure that the extraordinary works in this collection are well cared for but also that our visitors experience them in engaging and inspiring ways.
Luckily for me, Zahra has been part of my time here from the very beginning. While the nature of our work together has changed over the years, her friendship and support have remained constant. I’m delighted to have this opportunity to talk with her about her career.
Samantha Grassi: I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we first met nine years ago. It was my very first day here as an exhibition designer, and I was intimidated. You were the manager of exhibitions back then, and I remember coming into your office and being immediately comforted and grounded by your enthusiasm and warmth.
Zahra Bahia: Thank you—that’s so nice to hear. I remember we were both so excited that day, and we just hit it off right away. It was incredible.
Sam: It really was. I can’t believe I don’t know this, but did you start out here working on exhibitions?
Zahra: I started in a temporary position with the Imaging department in 2014, filling in for their archival manager. It was a fantastic introduction to working here, since I got to interact with departments all across the museum. Next I was recommended to the Applied Arts of Europe department for a special projects role. The museum was working to create web pages for every object in our holdings, and I managed the department’s inventory project.
Sam: Do you remember the total number of artworks you catalogued?
Zahra: Over 10,000.
Sam: Oh my gosh.
Zahra: Then I moved to the department of Architecture and Design—and they have over 500,000 works! Within a year of starting that inventory project, I was invited to apply for the exhibitions position I had when we met, which was a permanent role. I knew I wanted to continue working here, so I was like, absolutely!
Zahra Bahia and Samantha Grassi
Sam: Now, so many years later, you’re the director of curatorial administration for Painting and Sculpture of Europe. I often think of you as the connective tissue of your department. But how would you describe your role?
Zahra: That’s a pretty good description. My role encompasses a wide range of responsibilities, and nearly everything the department undertakes comes to me so I can ensure that our projects stay on track and our goals are achieved. I work on everything from planning gallery installations to coordinating artwork loans, facilitating the acquisition of new works, and maintaining digital records for our collection. I also communicate regularly with donors and scholars and handle administrative tasks related to staffing and finances.
The Painting and Sculpture of Europe department has always been extremely active and ambitious, so it’s a perfect fit for me. And I work with the most collegial, skilled, and dedicated team, led by Gloria Groom, who has the best “can-do” attitude. Our collection spans the 12th to early 20th century, and much of it is consistently on view, so we have a great deal of gallery space. An important part of my job is making sure that our galleries are ready, every day, to receive visitors and showcase the art at its best. This includes coordinating our gallery rotations and installations—the rearrangement of our gallery spaces whenever artworks are brought on view and others go off view for a time.
Sam: I’m thinking back to a few years ago, when we updated your department’s second-floor Michigan Avenue galleries with a new paint scheme, casework language, and artwork arrangement. There really is so much that goes into a project like that.
Zahra: Any work we do in the galleries takes careful planning with our curators and art handlers and often involves a wide range of departments—Conservation, Experience Design, Collections and Loans, and more. Our department is very methodical about how we prepare for installations, but that doesn’t take away from the excitement of the process itself. And we like to leave room for a little inspiration and spontaneity. Maybe the curator has envisioned one painting beside another, but then we try it out in the gallery, and they’re like, “I think we need to switch these”—and suddenly it all comes together.
Sam: I know the feeling! On a related note, let’s talk about exhibitions. Your department works on so many of them—and they’re all years in the making. How long would you say they take to plan?
Zahra: It takes about five years for us to develop and produce a major exhibition. There is so much planning that has to happen before we can begin working with your team to design the show. One of the reasons it takes so much time is that we need to determine which works will appear in the exhibition and arrange to borrow them from other museums and institutions. And often, when we request to borrow a major work, we reciprocate by lending something of ours in return. All of that needs to be worked out far in advance.
Sam: The Painting and Sculpture of Europe department is one of the top-lending art departments anywhere in the world. I imagine the scope of our exhibitions is a big reason why.
Zahra: We’re borrowing works constantly, and we also want to support other museums by lending our works in return, especially when doing so will bring new research to the field about the artists and artwork in our own collection. Our curators, along with museum leadership, feel very strongly about the importance of loaning works to other institutions. We all want to ensure that these works have a life beyond our walls. Our visitors also benefit from these exchanges, as they allow us to bring in artworks they might not otherwise see—even though we know it can be disappointing when a favorite work is off view.
Sam: We started by talking about your career path here at the museum, but I want to know more about what led you to consider coming here in the first place. Did you have dreams of working at an art museum when you were younger?
Zahra: It was not on my radar, but growing up I always loved making art, and art appreciation was very much encouraged at home. My parents liked to collect art objects and would bring my sisters and me to art fairs and galleries with them. We also traveled extensively, often to museums and cultural sites. And at school, I had wonderful teachers who would take us on field trips to local museums and galleries, which helped me appreciate art through a more academic lens.
Sam: It sounds like you were drawn to museums way back then, even if you hadn’t yet thought about working in one.
Zahra: It’s true. In our travels, I was always so inspired by them—these vast, historic buildings with fascinating architecture and filled with art; grandiose but serene, organized, and quiet. It’s always been my favorite sort of environment.
Sam: I had a very similar connection with art museums as a kid, but I didn’t think I would ever work in one until I stumbled into exhibition design halfway through my BFA in painting. What did you study in college?
Zahra: I started out as a biology major and was pre-med, but I couldn’t bring myself to choose any sort of direction in medicine. It wasn’t until late in undergrad, when I attended a career fair and met people who worked at museums and auction houses, that I realized a career in this field was attainable. I had been taking electives in art history and the humanities already, and very quickly, I decided to shift my major to art history. And then I went on to graduate school in London.
Sam: Did you know what you wanted to do after graduating?
Zahra: Not entirely, but I knew I was passionate about making art accessible and available to people.
Sam: I’d say that’s been a real throughline of your career so far. Could you share one way that you get to help connect people with art in your current role?
Zahra: A small but important one is our work with the educators in the Ryan Learning Center: Each year I have the opportunity to help finalize a list of artworks they use to plan their student tours and curriculum. The key is to choose works that will remain on view and not move at all for nine months—because as I’ve mentioned, things don’t always stay in the same place in our galleries! It isn’t easy to come up with the list sometimes, even though our department has over 600 artworks on view.
Sam: I hadn’t thought about that, but of course you need to plan ahead that way. For those students, seeing a major work, maybe something they’ve encountered before in class or in a book, could be a totally life-changing experience—a portal into a life of art. I know we’ve both had those experiences. They’re so important.
Zahra: It means a lot to me to think my work can have that kind of impact.
Sam: So I’m dying to know: What’s in the Painting and Sculpture of Europe collection, or even another department’s holdings, that affects you in some significant, positive way?
Zahra: There’s always something new to discover, and my favorites do change over the years. At the moment, I’m really inspired by Gallery 243, where a number of our Monet paintings hang.
A selection of Monet’s grainstack paintings, on view in the Mr. and Mrs. David Gilbert Hamilton Memorial Room, Gallery 243
It’s a completely dreamy gallery. His London series means a lot to me because my family has connections to that city, but I’m also enamored of the way he uses color in his grainstacks, which are absolutely electrifying. And then there’s the tranquility of his water lilies. Some of them are on loan to China right now, actually—
Sam: And we still have a gallery full of them!
Zahra: Yes, absolutely! We are truly spoiled, and I feel so lucky to be able to help share this incredible collection with the world.
—Zahra Bahia, director of curatorial administration, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, and Samantha Grassi, executive director, Exhibition Design
