Karole P. B. Vail (born 1958) is an American museum director, curator and writer. Since 2017, she has been the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Director for Italy. Prior to this appointment, she worked on the curatorial staff at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York for 20 years.[1][2]
Vail is the younger daughter of Michael Cedric Sindbad Vail (1923–1986) and Margaret "Peggy" Angela Vail (née Yeomans; d. 1988), who married in 1957.[3][4] Vail grew up in Europe and spent 12 years in Florence, Italy; she first became familiar with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection as a child. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Durham University in England[5] and a Diploma in Art History from the New Academy for Art Studies in London.[4][6]
Before joining the Guggenheim, Vail was an archivist and researcher at the arts publishing house Centro Di in Florence and worked as an assistant curator on independent projects. She is a co-founder and co-director of Non-Objectif Sud, a not-for-profit artist residency and exhibition program in the south of France.[6]