House Committee Information
Committee Name: Election LawPosition: Member
Committee Function:It shall be the duty of the Committee on Election Law to consider all matters relating to the election laws of the state, including campaign finance, the Ballot Law Commission, redistricting, and such other matters as may be referred to it.
Personal Biography
Gerald W. R. Ward is the curator of the Portsmouth Historical Society and editor of its
Portsmouth Marine Society Press.
A graduate of Harvard College, he holds a
doctorate from Boston University. He is also the Katharine Lane Weems Senior
Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture Emeritus at the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, and has contributed to many publications on American art and material
culture as an author or editor.
He is currently a Visiting Lecturer at the Massachusetts
College of Art and Design in Boston, where he teaches American art. He is serving his
seventh term as a State Representative in New Hampshire. He is married to Barbara
McLean Ward, PhD, who works for the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire. The
Wards have two married sons and three grandchildren.
Local Government Involvement
A state representative in Portsmouth for seven terms, Ward also served as an election
official (clerk and moderator) in Ward 3 from 2003-2023.
Miscellaneous Information:
Ward's early career included positions at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Winterthur Museum, and Strawbery Banke Museum. He joined the MFA in 1992; from 1999 to 2012 he served
as the Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture. For many years, he was focused on developing a new Art of the Americas Wing, which opened in 2010. In recent years,
his exhibitions have included “Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass” (MFA, 2011) and “Magna Carta: Cornerstone of Liberty” (MFA, 2014). His exhibitions at the Portsmouth Historical
Society have included shows on Portsmouth furniture, New Hampshire folk art, women’s art from the New Hampshire seacoast, Portsmouth quilts, and John Paul Jones memorabilia.
Recently, he organized “A Sense of Place” to commemorate Portsmouth’s 400th anniversary in 2023 and "The Matter of Memory" (2024). Currently, he is working on a book and exhibition
devoted to the art of Cabot Lyford scheduled for 2025.