Academy 12 – Emily Orr

Emily M. Orr is Associate Curator and Acting Head of Product Design and Decorative Arts at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum where her exhibitions include Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection (2026), Give Me a Sign: The Language of Symbols (2023), Underground Modernist: E. McKnight Kauffer (2021-2022), and Botanical Expressions (2019-2021). She holds a Ph.D. in the History of Design from the Royal College of Art/Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Her primary areas of scholarship span industrial design, the modern interior, and retail history. She is the author of Designing the Department Store: Display and Retail at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Bloomsbury, 2019) and co-editor and contributor to E. McKnight Kauffer: The Artist in Advertising (Rizzoli Electa/Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2020).