Mary Kisler is an art historian, curator and writer. She worked for 21 years at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Aotearoa New Zealand. She has led art tours in Europe and Australia and has been involved in art discussions with Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand's Saturday Morning programme for many years. In 2016, she was a Craig Hugh Smyth Fellow at the Harvard Centre for Renaissance Art, Villa I Tatti, Florence. Previous publications include Angels & Aristocrats: Early European Art in New Zealand Public Collections (Random House, 2010).
From 2014 to 2019 she worked on the Frances Hodgkins Project, resulting in two publications – the catalogue exhibition Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys, with other writers including Frances Spalding (Auckland University Press and Thames and Hudson, 2019) and Finding Frances Hodgkins (Massey University Press). These accompanied the touring exhibition 'Frances Hodgkins – European Journeys' (2019–2020) and the launch of the Frances Hodgkins online catalogue raisonné. She is currently researching a biography of James Tannock Mackelvie, who left his collection of artworks, books and objects of virtu to the people of Auckland in 1885.
Mary has a Masters in Italian and Art History. She began her career as a teacher, before studying and then teaching part-time in both the Italian and Women's Studies departments at the University of Auckland.
