MEDIA CONTACTS:
Shadia Lemus, 720-913-0096
[email protected]
Elle Welch, 720-913-0079
[email protected]
Samurai: Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection
Exhibition Biographies
Christoph Heinrich
Frederick and Jan Mayer Director, Denver Art Museum
Since his tenure as the Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the
Denver Art Museum (DAM) began in 2010, Christoph Heinrich
has continually pushed the boundaries of traditional art museum
experiences and made the DAM one of the most sought-after
tourist destinations in the Rocky Mountain West. Through
immersive, world exclusive exhibitions like Becoming Van Gogh
(2009) and Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century (2014), Heinrich
has elevated the DAM’s reputation for creating original content
to a new high. His vision for engaging audiences with the
collections in new and meaningful ways has resulted in three
campus-wide exhibitions tied to a single theme. These shows,
including In Bloom: Painting Flowers in the Age of
Impressionism (2015), Spun (2011) and Marvelous Mud
(2009), saw unprecedented collaborations across departments
to showcase the breadth and depth of the museum’s collections.
In addition to highlighting the collections through exhibitions,
Heinrich has championed landmark acquisitions, including a bequest of more than 20
Impressionist landscape paintings in 2014, which came as a result of the acclaimed exhibition
Nature as Muse, curated by Heinrich.
Heinrich came to Denver as the DAM’s Polly and Mark Addison Curator of Modern and
Contemporary Art in 2007 and served a year as deputy director before being named director. In his
curatorial role for the museum, Heinrich curated the 2009 exhibition Embrace!, which offered 17
contemporary artists from around the world the opportunity to create installations inspired by the
unique architecture of the museum’s Frederic C. Hamilton Building. In addition to curating renowned
exhibitions at the DAM, Heinrich has juried several exhibitions, written articles including book
reviews for the weekly magazine Die Zeit and compiled numerous catalogs for various exhibitions.
Heinrich originally hails from Germany. Before joining the DAM, Heinrich was at the Hamburg
Kunsthalle where, during his 12-year tenure, he organized more than 50 exhibitions. Some of his
most prominent exhibitions there included Andy Warhol: Photography, which also toured at the
International Center for Photography in New York, Francis Bacon: The Portraits, Mahjong:
Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection and Daniel Richter: A Major Survey.
Heinrich attended the Universität Wien in Vienna, which is the oldest university in the Germanspeaking world. There he studied art history, German literature and dramatics. He earned his M.A.
and Ph.D. at the Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität in Munich, Germany.
Tianlong Jiao, Joseph de Heer Curator of Asian Art, Denver Art
Museum
In the fall of 2015, Tianlong Jiao joined the Denver Art Museum’s
(DAM) diverse curatorial staff as the Joseph de Heer Curator of Asian
Art. With more than 10 years of museum leadership experience and
extensive experience in Asian art, and he brings a new lens to the
DAM’s Pan Asian art collection. Tianlong oversees the museum’s
Asian art collection, which includes objects from China, India, Japan,
Korea, Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, Tibet and Nepal. Samurai:
Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection is his first
exhibition as curator of Asian art at the DAM.
Previously, Tianlong was the department head and curator of
Chinese art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco where he
spearheaded the renovation of the Chinese galleries and curated
international traveling exhibitions from the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Nanjing
Museum in China. Prior to working in San Francisco, he served as the chief curator and chairman of
the collection committee at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum in Hong Kong and the chairman of the
Anthropology department at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Outside of his curatorial work, he has written or co-authored six books and more than 70 academic
papers, in English and Chinese, organized three international conferences and chaired many panels
at national and international conferences and lectured at universities in the United States, United
Kingdom, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.
Holding a Ph.D. in Archaeology from Harvard University, a Master of Arts degree from the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Beijing University, Tianlong has
built his career on presenting the stories behind objects, and the seamless connection between art
and artifact.
Melora McDermott-Lewis
Chief Learning and Engagement Officer, Denver Art Museum
Since joining the Denver Art Museum (DAM) in 1986, Melora
McDermott-Lewis has worn a variety of hats, heading up major
interpretive grants, overseeing family programs, serving as the
Master Teacher for Painting and Sculpture, and most recently,
taking on the role of chief learning and engagement officer. In
these roles, McDermott-Lewis has been instrumental in
establishing the museum's reputation for being one of the most
family-friendly art museums in the country and leading the field in
developing innovative installations for all ages.
McDermott-Lewis has been featured as a speaker nationally and internationally, presenting on
"Learning in Art Museums" at the Louvre, keynoting at the National Art Education Association’s
Museum Education Symposium, as well as speaking at numerous other national conferences.
She was the project director for such publications as “Family Programs at the Denver Art
Museum” and “New Angles in Interpretation.” Her research on art novices is frequently cited in
museum education publications.
Prior to working at the DAM, McDermott-Lewis taught and developed educational materials at
the Oakland Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts. McDermott-Lewis was a student of art history at Harvard and Boston Universities, and
she received her Bachelor of Arts in European History from Princeton University. She obtained
her Master of Arts from the John F. Kennedy University Center for Museum Studies in museum
studies/education.
Douglas R. Wagner
Curatorial Assistant of Asian Art, Denver Art Museum
Douglas Wagner has been with the Denver Art Museum (DAM) since 1997 and with the Asian
Art Department since 2006. In that time he has helped to preserve, expand, exhibit and
interpret the museum’s Asian art collection. He has published articles on Asian art, and lectured
about the samurai at the Denver Art Museum, University of Colorado and University of Denver.
Wagner is currently acting as the DAM’s samurai specialist for its exhibition Samurai: Armor
from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier Mueller Collection.
Gabriel Barbier-Mueller
Collector, The Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum
Gabriel Barbier-Mueller is the founder and CEO of Harwood International in Dallas, Texas. Born
and raised in Geneva, Switzerland, he moved to Dallas in 1979.
Founded in 1988, Harwood International is a global real estate developer and investor with
prime offices and projects in select niche markets in Beverly Hills, Dallas, Geneva, London’s
West End, Paris, Sunnyvale, and Zurich. The full service real estate company covers every
aspect of real estate acquisition, development, construction, design, and management of both
commercial and multi-family residential mid-rise and high-rise properties. These urban Walk-toLife projects have adopted the planning principles of “City Comforts.”
In addition to the growing portfolio of properties and development projects from London to
Beverly Hills, Gabriel’s signature development is the award-winning district of HARWOO in
Uptown Dallas. Home to such companies as The Boston Consulting Group, Emirates Airlines,
Frost Bank, HollyFrontier Corporation, Jones Day, MoneyGram International, Prologis, and
Rolex, the six-building development by Harwood International currently showcases more than
two million square feet of premier Class AA office building, residential multi-family living, retail
space, and garden cafes. In addition, the park-like campus features pocket parks, restaurants,
The Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum: The Samurai Collection, and art-filled lobbies.
Now an 18-city block district, HARWOOD will grow to include over 12 million square feet of
high-rise and mid-rise office, retail, and multi-family residential developments. Coming soon are
new phases, cafes and retail.
Through his development of residential high-rises and commercial headquarters for various
companies – including Centex, Frost Bank, Jones Day, Rolex buildings in Dallas, Lititz, PA,
Beverly Hills, and Paris among others – he has worked with such acclaimed architects as
James Cheng, Michael Graves, Richard Keating, Kengo Kuma, Joey Shimoda, and Jean-Michel
Wilmotte.
Mr. Barbier-Mueller’s projects have been published in the Master Series of Architects book
series and have won numerous awards such as the Los Angeles Beautification Award, a
national landscaping award from the Urban Land Institute for the International Center Gardens,
national awards from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Preservation Achievement
Award, the Trammell Crow Urban Forestry Award, and the City of Dallas Urban Design award.
Fluent in French, German and English, and with a working knowledge of Spanish, Mr. BarbierMueller has established and maintained a strong European and American partner base of
institutions and large individuals.
Mr. Barbier-Mueller is a member of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in
New York (MOMA) and is the Legacy Chairman of the Business Council for the Arts. He also
serves as Honorary Consul of Switzerland for North Texas and is serving on the board of SMU’s
Cox School of Business, past Executive Council Member of the Real Estate Finance and
Investment Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and past Board Member of the School of
Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin (’04 – ‘07) and past Board of Trustees Member
of the Dallas Museum of Art. Gabriel is a former member of the Dallas-Lone Star Young
Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and an active member of both World President’s Organization
(WPO) and Chief Executive Organization (CEO). He holds an Executive MBA from Southern
Methodist University in Dallas.