The Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Roko Rumora as assistant curator of ancient art. Rumora brings exceptional expertise in Roman sculpture and extensive experience in curatorial research and exhibition development.
“In the field of classical archaeology and ancient art history, the Toledo Museum of Art is something of a household name. TMA’s ancient collections are among the richest and most diverse in the United States, and its collection of ancient glass is renowned as one of the world’s finest,” said Rumora. “I look forward to contributing to the museum’s mission of integrating art into people’s lives through new ways of engaging visitors with the ancient world.”
Rumora also expressed particular interest in the potential of the museum’s ancient glass collection to tell the story of antiquity’s vivid colors—a story further enriched by the museum’s rich holdings in stone, bronze, and terracotta.
“We are excited to have Roko join the team as assistant curator of ancient art,” said Anna Marley, director of curatorial affairs at TMA. “Roko not only has excellent scholarly training from his time at the University of Chicago and the J. Paul Getty Museum, but an open and welcoming approach to sharing the ancient world with visitors today. We look forward to him using his expertise in provenance research to expand our knowledge of TMA’s collections of ancient art, and I am particularly thrilled to work with Roko to invite Toledo’s diverse Syrian and Lebanese communities into conversation with the museum’s strong holdings of ancient art from that region.”
Rumora is currently completing his Ph.D. in Art History at the University of Chicago, where his research focuses on the maintenance and organization of public collections of marble statues in Roman Anatolia, the region corresponding to modern-day Turkey. His dissertation, titled Spacing Statues: Interpreting Curatorial Interventions on Roman Aedicular Façades, examines how local communities of the Roman Empire displayed new, reused, and repaired statues side by side in purpose-built galleries.
Prior to joining TMA, Rumora worked at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where he has been engaged as a co-author of a catalog of the museum’s Roman marble sculptures and as one of the curators of an upcoming exhibition on ancient Anatolia, set to open in 2026. He has also co-curated several exhibitions, including Making Sense of Marbles: Roman Sculpture at the OI (2022) at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in Chicago and The Horse and Rider from Albania (2023) at the Getty Villa Museum in Malibu.
Born and raised in Croatia, Rumora’s international perspective and dedication to the study of Roman art bring an exciting new dimension to TMA’s Ancient Art program.