Born in 1934 in Darmstadt, Germany, Christa C. Mayer Thurman was the chair and curator of the department of textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago for 42 years until retiring in 2009. Thurman moved as a child from Germany to Zurich, Switzerland, before coming to New York in 1954 to study at Finch College (BA, 1958). After completing her undergraduate degree, she worked for several years as an independent conservation apprentice and assistant curator in the department of textiles at Cooper-Union Museum, while enrolled at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University (MA, 1966). She was hired as an associate curator in the department of textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1967. During her four decades of stewardship, she expanded the museum’s textile collection from 7,000 to more than 15,000 pieces, and she placed special focus on acquiring post-war works from around the world. She also established a conservation laboratory to preserve and rehabilitate the growing collection. As a curator, Thurman mounted more than 80 exhibitions and wrote extensively on textiles. She has contributed to numerous publications, including the Charles F. Montgomery prizewinning catalogue Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision, 1925 – 1940. In 1992, her curatorial position was anonymously endowed and named in her honor. She also became the first textile curator to receive a prestigious Getty Fellowship in 2004, which she used to research rare European tapestries in preparation for a major exhibition at the Institute. In addition to her work as a curator, she has been a leading member of the Centre International d’Études des Textiles Anciens for decades and has presented her research in talks around the world. In honor of her leadership in textile scholarship and curation, Christa C. Mayer Thurman was elected an Honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council in 2000.