The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hardford, CT announced the appointment of Oliver Tostmann as the institution’s new Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art. Tostmann, who previously served as a curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, will officially assume his position at the Wadsworth on October 28,2013.

An expert on Renaissance and Baroque artists, Tostmann has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe and his writings have been widely published. He will oversee the Wadsworth’s comprehensive European art collection, which includes 900 paintings, 500 sculptures, and 3,500 works on paper. Tostmann said, “I am delighted and honored to work in such a renowned institution. To explore the Wadsworth’s collection of European art is simply irresistible, and I embrace its commitment to scholarship.”

The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest free public art museum in the United States and boasts an impressive collection of baroque paintings, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces, and extensive holdings in early American furniture and decorative arts.