ArtChat: Contemporary Art & the Cincinnati Art Museum with Emily Holtrop

Emily Agricola Holtrop is the director of Learning & Interpretation at the Cincinnati Art Museum. With over 25 years of museum education experience, Holtrop has worked in the Division of Learning & Interpretation at the Cincinnati Art Museum since 2002. Her previous position with the museum was as the assistant curator for school and teacher programs. Holtrop oversees the museum’s interpretive and educational initiatives in her current role. This includes public programs for all audiences and all collection and special exhibition interpretation.

Before coming to the Cincinnati Art Museum, Holtrop was the Education Outreach Coordinator for the Historical Museum of Southern Florida and the Caribbean, now History Miami. In that role she created and implemented all public programs.

Holtrop was the director of the National Art Education Association Museum Education Division from 2015 to 2017 and was named the organization’s 2018 National Museum Educator of the Year. Holtrop is the Chair of the Art Academy of Cincinnati’s Board of Trustees (2024-2026).

Ms. Holtrop holds an A.A. in Art History from Grand Rapids Community College, a B.A. in Public History from Western Michigan University, and an MSc. in Architectural History from the University College London-Bartlett School of Architecture.