About

Dr Lena Fritsch is an award-winning curator, writer and art historian, dividing her time between Berlin, London and Oxford. Her extensive curatorial career has seen her work at prominent institutions such as the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, Tate Modern, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie in Berlin, before becoming independent. She has orchestrated over 15 exhibitions and numerous museum installations. Many of her shows garnered five star reviews, including Tokyo: Art & Photography (2021), and were nominated for awards, including Ashmolean NOW: Pio Abad for the 2024 Turner Prize. She has published on a wide array of modern and contemporary art, ranging from the work of influential German artists, such as Anselm Kiefer, A.R. Penck and Cornelia Schleime, to Agnes Martin’s writings, Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures, Ibrahim El-Salahi’s African modernist art, Moriyama Daido’s photography, Flora Yukhnovich’s distinctive paintings, and Radiohead’s LP covers.

Fritsch has taught at the University of Oxford and SOAS (University of London), lectures regularly at museums, and consults private clients. She holds a PhD in Art History from Bonn University and also studied at Keio University, Tokyo.

Before developing the modern and contemporary art programme at the Ashmolean from 2017 until 2025 as its inaugural Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Fritsch was employed by Tate Modern. During her time there, she co-curated the large-scale retrospectives Giacometti (2017) and Agnes Martin (2015), and curated displays of works by contemporary artists, such as Ai Weiwei and Simryn Gill. She played a key role in helping both the Ashmolean and Tate acquire countless works of art for their collections, securing substantial external funding. Prior to this, Fritsch was employed at the Directorate General, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie.

A specialist in Japanese photography and an experienced translator of the Japanese language, Fritsch is the author of the first English-language overview on post-war Japanese photography, Ravens & Red Lipstick: Japanese Photography since 1945 (Thames & Hudson 2018/2024). She has published extensively on Japanese art, including monographs on the work of Ishiuchi Miyako (2026) and Morimura Yasumasa (2008). In 2022, she co-curated the Roppongi Crossing triennial of contemporary Japanese art at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.