Sophia Sobrino spent her college years curating exhibitions and handling artworks at the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art in Brookhaven. Two years after graduating, she's doing the same work on a bigger stage as Coordinator of Gallery Learning at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
Sobrino, a 2024 Oglethorpe graduate and studio art major, now oversees parts of the High's docent program and public education efforts. The High's docent corps numbers more than 140 volunteers who collectively lead around 3,000 tours each year, according to the museum.
Her path started well before college. A Mexican-American artist, Sobrino exhibited work as a high school student at the Latin American Association, the Mexican Consulate and UPS headquarters.
At Oglethorpe, she found a training ground at the university's museum, known as OUMA. The 7,000-square-foot space on the top floor of the Philip Weltner Library is free to visit and describes itself as the only small liberal arts university museum in the Southeast that regularly shows nationally and internationally recognized exhibitions.
"Being able to work so closely with the museum's permanent collection in such a hands-on manner really did help prepare me for where I'm at today at the High Museum," Sobrino said in a profile published by Oglethorpe on Monday, July 20.
She credited the museum's staff and faculty with giving her both practical skills and the confidence to pursue arts education as a career, saying her voice was heard and her input valued throughout the process.
The connection between OUMA and Brookhaven's broader cultural life runs deep. Director Elizabeth Peterson Jennings, who has served on the City of Brookhaven Arts and Culture Commission for five years, has called OUMA "Brookhaven's only museum of art." The museum recently lent two works from its permanent collection to the new Brookhaven City Centre.
Oglethorpe University sits at 4484 Peachtree Road NE in Brookhaven. OUMA is closed through Sunday, August 23, for scheduled maintenance and facilities improvements, but its exhibition "Realism Revisited" runs through Sunday, February 28, 2027.
The High Museum of Art is at 1280 Peachtree St. NE in Atlanta.
Coming up
- Monday, August 24 — OUMA reopens after summer maintenance closure (free admission, Philip Weltner Library, Oglethorpe University campus)
