Patricia Marroquin Norby, the first curator of Native American art ever hired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, quietly left her post in December 2025. Earlier this month, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York posted a job listing for a curator of Native American art to replace Norby, who had been the museum’s associate curator of Native American art since 2020.  Norby had been hired to great fanfare, as both the first person to hold the role at the Met and the first Native American to be hired as a curator by the institution. Her appointment was seen as both a watershed and as a response to criticism from various Native American tribes, who pointed to the museum’s poor documentation for many of the thousands of Native artworks and cultural objects it owns, some of which are on display in the recently opened Rockefeller Wing. Related Articles Norby’s departure was much quieter. She left the Met in December; Norby and a Met spokesperson both cited health reasons as the cause of her departure. …