Libby Lumpkin joined the Las Vegas Art Museum (LVAM) as Consulting Executive Director in July 2005, becoming Director in January 2007. Previous to joining LVAM, Dr. Lumpkin was the founding curator of the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas. She served as Director of the Museum Studies Program and Assistant Professor of Art History at California State University, Long Beach; Visiting Professor of Art Theory at Yale University; Visiting Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University; Visiting Professor of Theory and Aesthetics at the University of California Santa Barbara; Visiting Lecturer at Umea University in Umea, Sweden; and Visiting Professor at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. She also served as Assistant Professor of Art History and Curator of the Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she organized exhibitions of one-person shows by Amy Adler, Tim Gardner, Bart Exposito, and other contemporary artists.

Dr. Lumpkin's books include Deep Design: Nine Little Art Histories, Ingrid Calame, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, War Paint. She edited and produced the catalogs for the Bellagio Collection and has authored numerous critical essays on contemporary art and design. She was a contributing editor of Art Issues magazine of Los Angeles and a regular contributor to Artforum of New York. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Art History degree at the University of Houston; Master of Arts in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin; and Doctor of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.