For curators art collection is not just a hobby but goes beyond that as a serious career choice. It is a professional art field in fact. Curators are often time in charge of museums, archive, galleries, and libraries. They often times have various responsibilities that include watching over the art collections in their prospective institutions, the catalogs pertaining to the collections (assisted by a specialist in publications). Curators deal in tangible items, and also with fine art collections that can be displayed either to private individuals or the public at large. They collect various kinds or works of art, from the historical and traditional pieces to the modern works of artists that are not as well known. Curators do not always cover many topics sometimes they specialize is just one area. Many times the museums they work in and just focused in one area too. What work the curator does may depend on this.

A curator could be solely in charge of purchasing and the caring of the art collections in smaller institutions or galleries. He (or she) not only chooses what art to collect but also oversees like their care and documentation; also he (or she) has to research the items that are collected. If the items need to be taken from point A to point B as in shipping the curator makes sure that they placed in the correct type of containers. The scholarly community often times receives information from the curators just as the public may. The use of publications including journals and the art exhibitions helps the curator do this task.

Sometimes the curator is the paid staff member if it is a small museum or gallery. When it comes to a larger institution, he or she is usually a specialist on one subject. Curators are expected to conduct original research on their own and help steer the institution’s activities with their art collections. Many large institutions employ a head curator who in turn oversees other curators who specialize in one subject. In places like these, other workers may perform the care that the art is given, and the details dealing with administration may be handled by someone else too.

Advanced education is needed to be a curator; many have a high level of academic degree in a subject pertaining in one way or another to the field of art. There are some curators that even have achieved doctorates. Besides having this advanced degree, they need to make a contribution back to their academic area of expertise through either presentations or articles. Another prerequisite is practical knowledge. Curators have to stay on top of what is the new trends in the art collecting world and the present climate too, they also need to know all laws and ethical situations that may affect the art collection that they have charge of.

Two-dimensional wall art, for a lack of a better word, is the most common type of art curators are likely to purchase for collections. Sculptural pieces are also quite common. Other forms of artwork the may appear in the art collection are 3D wall art, prints, and certain recordings usually of famous performances. Most of the time 100% of the collection is not displayed at once. Usually only a small number of the pieces are displayed for the public, while the other pieces are stilled stored away. Many times these displays or exhibitions are based on a central theme to all pieces pointing to that theme.