Karen E. Jones

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Karen E. Jones is a curator and critic specializing in Modern and Contemporary Art. She earned her B.A. cum laude in Art/Semiotics and French at Brown University. She completed both the Whitney Independent Study Program and the DeAppel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam and studied in the Art History Ph.D. Program at Columbia University. Jones has curated numerous exhibitions such as The Power of the City/City of Power, Whitney Museum, Against the Wall: Painting Against the Grid Surface and Frame, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Exceeding Paint/Expanding Painting, Pratt Manhattan Gallery and Archive Bound: Strategies of Conceptual, Performance and Site-Specific Art, Center for Book Arts. Jones has lectured at the Museum of Modern Art and the International Center for Photography. She has contributed to the publications Art and Text, Tema Celeste, and Art Critical. Jones served on the Board of the International Studio and Curatorial Program and is the Culture Chair at the Brown University Club in New York.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.