
Photo: Kelvin Bulluck
Dr Rhea Combs is a Senior Fellow in Contemporary and Global Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Her work explores the future of curatorial practice and considers new models for the study and presentation of art that is rooted in cultural equity, global collaboration.
She was previously director of curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) where she served as the curator of film and photography and head of the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts (CAAMA)
Current Exhibition
American Winners: Athletes and Entertainers Who Shaped the Nation
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
September 26, 2025 - September 7, 2026
Recent Books

This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance
Edited with text by Hilton Als, Rhea L. Combs. Foreword by Rhea L. Combs (2024)

Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971
by Doris Berger and Rhea L. Combs, DelMonico Books/Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (2022)
