Devon Pyle-Vowles
Collection Manager, Registrar, Install Coordinator at Chicago Metro and the Midwest

About

*Now offering bookend courier services for the Midwest region, O'Hare ariport**

As of June 2022, Devon Pyle-Vowles is an Exhibitions Registrar at the Field Museum working on both incoming and outgoing traveling exhibitions.  In early 2022, she was a contractor working with traveling exhibition companies and for the Met as a bookend courier. During 2021, Devon was a full-time contractor working for the Met and for Masterpiece international as a bookend courier in the City of Chicago and also at O'Hare airport. Prior to July 2020, she was the Collections Manager of the European Painting and Sculpture department (department changed name from Medieval/Modern in May 2015) at the Art Institute of Chicago. This position was highly demanding regarding its outgoing loans, installations and exhibition schedules. Devon was involved in every aspect of managing the collection of European art. Prior to this position she was the Collections Inventory Manager for the European Decorative Arts department at the Art Institute of Chicago. She was a founding board member of ARCS and was a team leader for their first conference in Chicago in 2013. Devon served as the Vice Chair for the Midwest Registrars Committee (MRC). From 2008 to December 2014, Devon was on the Board of Directors for the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston, IL and was the Chair of the Collections Committee. From 2001-2007, she was the Vice Chair and Chair of the Registrars Committee of the American Association of Museums (now the American Alliance of Museums and Collection Stewardhip). Devon has been on the planning team and the Registration Coordinator for the International Registrars Symposium for 2007, 2009 and 2011. She is the editor of the 2003 handbook “Beyond Fingernail Polish lll, The Numbering of Objects for Museums”.  From 1996-2004, she was the MRC Courier Newsletter Editor. Devon has been one of the coordinators for the Chicago Area Registrars Council since 1996. She has presented at various museum conferences on condition reporting, old loans, marking objects, hand-carries, couriering, and environmental issues for collections.  Prior to working at the Art Institute of Chicago, Devon was the Registrar at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and before that was the Collections Manager at the Adler Planetarium for 14 years. Devon has been the Registrar for the Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago and the Musée d’Art Américain, Giverny, France; the Assistant Curator at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, Project Assistant for the Smithsonian's America exhibition to Japan, Archaeological Laboratory Technician at the Harper's Ferry National Historic Park, and Museum Technician at the Frederick Douglass Historic Home. During her museum career, Devon has been responsible for art and decorative art collections, sculptures, antique scientific instruments, rare books, historical documents and photography, space art and memorabilia.  She has developed and implemented policies and procedures along with coordinating the installations, documentation, preservation planning, movement and display, insurance, rights & reproduction contracts, grants and budgets. She holds a Masters of Arts degree in Museum Studies from George Washington University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Archaeological Studies from Oberlin College.