It's been a busy news week for the Milwaukee Art Museum. First, it announced a Plan for the Future; now, this morning, it announced that Brandon Ruud is the museum's new curator of American art and decorative arts.

Ruud's museum expertise stretches across 20 years. He's previously worked at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Neb., where he started as assistant curator in 1998 and helped with a major reinstallation of the museum's American collection.

In addition, he worked a five-year stint at the Art Institute of Chicago as assistant research curator of American art. There, he also worked on the institute's reinstallation of its American collection before moving onto the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He's been the Sheldon Museum's curator of American art since 2010, completing a series of permanent collection catalogs before now coming to Milwaukee. 

Some of his exhibition work includes "Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago" at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009, and "A Faithful and Vivid Picture: Karl Bodmer's North American Prints" at the Joslyn Art Museum in 2002. A publication of the latter exhibition won the title of Notable Book of the Year from the New York Times in 2005.

"Brandon brings a wealth of expertise and experience to this important position at the Museum," said Brady Roberts, the chief curator for the MAM, "and he impressed everyone here with his passion for American art and his reinstallation experience."

Ruud will begin work at the MAM later this month.