Mayor Kim Lund and the Whatcom Museum Foundation’s Board of Trustees have named Maria J. Coltharp the Whatcom Museum’s acting executive director, effective May 1, 2025, following outgoing Executive Director Patricia Leach’s retirement on April 30.
Coltharp came to the Whatcom Museum in 2019, first serving as the curator of collections and registrar, then as the director of collections and operations. As part of the museum’s senior leadership team, she has contributed to strategic and administrative planning and has served as a primary liaison between the Whatcom Museum Foundation – which organizes and funds all exhibitions, events, and programming – and the City of Bellingham, which owns the museum’s extensive permanent collections and two of the museum’s buildings.
During her tenure at the Whatcom Museum, Coltharp has co-led the collections and exhibitions teams alongside Chief Curator Amy Chaloupka and has overseen all artwork and artifact management as well as the installation of permanent and rotating exhibitions. She is directing efforts to rehouse the museum’s photo archives, comprised of more than 200,000 historic Pacific Northwest images and photographic objects, in a climate-controlled environment with improved public access while also spearheading plans to upgrade the museum’s vault – a 16,000 square foot subterranean collections space – to prioritize materials stability and accessibility for visitors and scholars.
Before joining the Whatcom Museum, Coltharp worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Broad Art Foundation, and California State University Long Beach. In those roles, she’s managed national and international touring exhibitions; worked with world-renowned artists to support their artistic visions; secured private donor and grant funding for key conservation and collection projects; and has partnered with organizations like the Getty Conservation Institute to envision and execute long-term plans for conserving and maintaining public, outdoor art installations.
“Maria translates her deep knowledge and love of the arts into thoughtful stewardship of this amazing community asset,” said Mayor Lund. “Maria's combination of skill, vision, and passion will be invaluable in leading the Whatcom Museum during this transition time.”
The City has begun the early stages of the search process for a new, permanent executive director.
About the Whatcom Museum
The Whatcom Museum was founded in 1941 and overlooks Washington State’s Bellingham Bay. Notable projects have included the 2019 retrospective exhibition WANTED: Ed Bereal for Disturbing the Peace, featured in The New York Times; the award-winning, co-curated exhibition Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, which traveled to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., in 2023; and Verdant: French Masterworks from the National Gallery of Art. Also on view are El velo exquisito / The Exquisite Veil: Works by Alfredo Arreguín and Not the Whole Picture, Garth Amundson & Pierre Gour. Opening this summer are Mary Ann Peters’ myself inside your story and Meander, a new installation by Io Palmer. The Whatcom Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
The Whatcom Museum campus in downtown Bellingham includes three buildings: the Lightcatcher, Old City Hall, and Old Fire Station No. 1. For more information about exhibitions and admission, visit whatcommuseum.org.
