Castleman, Riva

Riva Castleman (born 1930) joined MoMA's Department of Drawings and Prints in 1963 as a cataloger and in 1976 became Director of Prints and Illustrated Books (department est. 1976.) She was named Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs in 1986, a position she held in addition to her work as Director of Prints and Illustrated Books until she retired in June 1995.

Ms. Castleman received her B.A. in art history from the University of Iowa and pursued graduate work at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. From 1951 to 1955, she was an assistant curator at the Art Institute of Chicago before working at the California Historical Society in San Francisco from 1956 until 1957. Between 1958 and 1962 she was an associate of John Fleming, an antiquarian book dealer in New York City. Castleman recognized the significance of prints and illustrated books as important expressions of modern art. Among her important writings are Contemporary Prints (1973), Prints of the Twentieth Century: A History (1976), Printed Art: A View of Two Decades (1980), Jasper Johns: A Print Retrospective (1987) and American Impressions: Prints Since Pollock (1994). During her tenure at the Museum she arranged over twenty-one exhibitions on modern and contemporary prints, lithographs and illustrated books.