Expanding Frontiers: Chris Semtner

Chris Semtner is the curator at The Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. He has curated critically acclaimed exhibits for museums and galleries across the country with his Library of Virginia exhibit Poe: Man, Myth, or Monster, earning the praise of The New York Times.

Semtner's exhibits for the Poe Museum earned awards and honors from TIME Magazine and USA Today, among others. Using innovation to bring Poe to new audiences, Semtner has collaborated on performances with a diverse variety of groups, including ballet, historians, and even cemeteries.

Chris is an internationally exhibited fine artist whose paintings have entered numerous public collections, including at the Virginia Historical Society and the University of Maryland. He has contributed to several books and art projects, as well as appeared widely on television.

Chris regularly speaks about a variety of unusual, obscure, and macabre subjects to groups of all ages around the country and as far away as Japan. His most recent book, The Poe Shrine: Building the World’s Finest Edgar Allan Poe Collection, tells the strange but true stories behind The Poe Museum’s artifacts.