Art historian Charlotte Ickes joined the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in 2019. As curator of time-based media art and special projects, she stewards the museum’s growing time-based media art collection and organizes exhibitions of contemporary art. With Josh T Franco, Ickes organized Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return, a multi-site exhibition (2024–2025).  She co-curated Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass (2023–2026), served as a member of the curatorial team for Kinship (2022–2024), commissioned Birthright (2022), a new performance by Maren Hassinger, and co-curated with Saisha Grayson and Marina Isgro “Viewfinder: Women’s Film and Video from the Smithsonian,” a yearlong virtual screening and conversation series (2021).  With Taína Caragol, she is co-curating the 2025 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, opening October 2025.  She is currently developing a major exhibition of all new work by Wendy Red Star. 

Prior to joining the Portrait Gallery, Ickes was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She has organized exhibitions and public programs at institutions and cultural spaces that include Anthology Film Archives, the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Slought, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago.  

From 2012 to 2013, Ickes participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. She received her BA from Yale University and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.  

Article

• Ickes, Charlotte and Moss, Dorothy. 2020. "Artist Maren Hassinger Has Spent Her Entire Career Mediating the Current Moment." Smithsonian Magazine, Sep 9, 2020, Washington, DC. 2020
• Ickes, Charlotte and Vaughn, Jessica. 2020. "Local Geographies: Jessica Vaughn Interviewed by Charlotte Ickes." BOMB Magazine, Jan 14, 2020, 2020
• Ickes, Charlotte. 2015. "The Sartorial and the Skin: Portraits of Pocahontas and Allegories of English Empire." American Art, 29, (1) 82–105. https://doi.org/10.1086/681656. 2015
• Ickes, Charlotte. 2014. "Sonic stitches: Isaac Julien, his mother, and her "Creolized" sound." Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, 24, (2-3) 258–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/0740770X.2014.976504. 2014

Book

• Ickes, Charlotte and Franco, Josh T. 2025. Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return. Radius Books. 2025
• Caragol, Taína and Ickes, Charlotte. 2025. The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today [Exhibition catalog] 2025
• Ickes, Charlotte and Franco, Josh T. 2024. Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Final Revenge [Exhibition catalog] 2024
• Ureña, Leslie, Moss, Dorothy, Asleson, Robyn, Caragol, Taína, and Ickes, Charlotte. 2022. Kinship. Washington, DC; Munich, Germany: National Portrait Gallery; Hirmer Publishers. 2022
• Ickes, Charlotte and Bryan-Wilson, Julia. 2018. Ginny Casey and Jessi Reaves [Exhibition catalog] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Institute of Contemporary Art. 2018
• Ickes, Charlotte, Bradley, Rizvana, and Philip, M. Nourbese. 2016. Descent [Exhibition catalog] Edited by Ickes, Charlotte. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Institute of Contemorary Art. 2016