Cindi Strauss
Cindi Strauss
Cindi Strauss
Cindi Strauss acquired the work behind her—Byung Hoon Choi’s basalt sculpture Scholar’s Way, designed in 2017 and made 2017 to 2019—for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Photo by Thomas R. DuBrock.
“For those of us who spend our career in craft, we have the pleasure, and the imperative, to introduce people beyond our field to the works of art and the artists,” says Cindi Strauss, Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In her 30 years at MFAH, Strauss has done just that, by assembling an internationally recognized collection of contemporary craft; curating major exhibitions and producing catalogs that educate visitors on artists, media, techniques, history, and the importance of craft; and opening MFAH’s Nancy and Rich Kinder Building in 2020, a permanent gallery devoted to craft.
Strauss has also lectured widely on craft and written in publications including Metalsmith, Ceramic Review, and American Craft. Her catalog for her exhibition Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection received the George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America “for outstanding publications in the visual arts and architecture which combine the highest standards of scholarship, design, and production.” As a board member for the American Craft Council, Center for Craft, Art Jewelry Forum, and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, she’s led advancement in the dialogue about craft.
I decided this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Cindi Strauss
While earning a degree in art history (BA, Hamilton College), Strauss “learned about every medium under the sun, but not about craft, decorative arts, or design.” Then she took a seminar on decorative arts and “fell in love. I decided this is what I want to do for the rest of my life—study it, research it, write about it, and work in a museum where I can engage with these materials.” After earning her MA in the history of decorative arts from Cooper Hewitt / Parsons School of Design, she arrived in Houston as a curatorial assistant in decorative arts. Soon after, the museum began developing its craft collection—and Strauss never left.
Her outstanding exhibitions include the aforementioned Ornament as Art (2007); Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary Ceramics: The Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection (2012); and Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection (2014). Two of those exhibitions traveled nationwide. She is also the co-author of the book In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture (2021). Craft, says Strauss, has been “for me a career-wide and career-long investigation and engagement. And I still feel that way today.”
Read more about the other 2024 ACC Awards recipients and honorees here.
Be part of the celebration
Join us Thursday, September 19 as we celebrate and honor individuals who have dedicated their careers to craft, and who—through their work as artists, educators, mentors, curators, and advocates—have inspired and informed the field.
This article was made possible with support from the Windgate Foundation.