Terrie Sultan (born 28 October 1952) is an American art historian and museum director. She is the director of the Parrish Art Museum in Long Island, New York (started 1 April 2008; she replaced 26-year veteran Trudy Kramer). Her previous position was at the University of Houston in Texas.
Sultan was raised in North Carolina. Her brother is the artist and printmaker Donald Sultan, based in Sag Harbor, New York.
She served in the Peace Corps, spending time in Apia, Samoa (1977).
She has served in senior positions at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston (8 years). She has organized more than 40 exhibitions in her career, including Chantal Akerman: Moving through Time and Space, and Jessica Stockholder: Kissing the Wall, and Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration.
She married artist Christopher C. French in 1988.
Sultan has published over 40 items, including books:
Gursky: Landscapes (2016)
Dan Rizzie (with Mark Smith, 2015)
Jennifer Bartlett 1970-2011 (with Jennifer Bartlett and Klaus Ottmann, 2013)
Alice Aycock Drawings (with Jonathan Fineberg, 2013)
Chantal Akerman (with Claudia Schmuckli, 2008)
Populence (with David Pagel, 2008)
Damaged Romanticism: A Mirror of Modern Emotion (with David Pagel, 2008)
Jean Luc Mylayne (with Lynne Cooke, 2007)
Katrina Moorhead (with Claudia Schmuckli, 2007)
Tam van Tran: Psychonaut (2006)
Urs Fischer: Mary Poppins (with Claudia Schmuckli, 2006)
James Surls: the Splendora Years 1977-1997 (2005)
Jane and Louise Wilson: Erewhon (2005)
Dugout (contributor, 2005)
Timothy App; a Selection of Works 1998-2005 (2005)
Alain Bublex: Plug-In City (2005)
Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration (with Richard Shiff, 2003)
American Treasures of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (with Sarah Cash, 2000)
Kerry James Marshall (Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 2000)
Donald Lipski: A Brief History Of Twine (with Donald Lipski, 2000)
Collection in Focus: Dennis Oppenheim (1999)
Ida Applebroog: Nothing Personal (with Ida Applebroog, 1998)
The Forty-Fifth Biennial: The Corcoran Collection 1907-1998 (contributor, 1998)
New American Paintings - Juried Exhibitions In Print - April 1998 (1998)
Ken Aptecar: Talking To Pictures (with Ken Aptecar, 1997)
Petah Coyne: Black/White/Black (with Carrie Przybilla, 1996)
Painting Outside Painting (1995)
Nick Kemps (1995)
Louise Bourgeois 1982-1993 (with Louise Bourgeois and Charlotte Kolik, 1994)
43rd Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Paintings (w Christopher French, 1993)
Maurizio Pellegrin (with Maurizio Pellegrin, 1992)
Interface: Berlin Art in the Nineties (contributor, 1992)
42nd Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Paintings (w Christopher French, 1991)
William T. Wiley (with Christopher French, 1991)
Joyce Scott (with Joyce Scott, 1991)
The Pervasiveness of Memory (1991)
Inability to Endure or Deny The World: Representation and Text in the Work of Robert Morris (1990)
Achievements and honors
Member of the International Association of Art Critics
Served on the College Art Association’s award committee for Lifetime Achievement for Art Writing
Founding board member of Etant donnes, the French-American Endowment for Contemporary Art
Awarded a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France (2003)
Under her direction, the Parrish Art Museum constructed a new campus in Water Mill, New York.
