She was senior curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London for over 20 years, where she was responsible for originating and curating many ambitious and groundbreaking exhibitions such as Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth (2017), also curating its tour to The Broad in Los Angeles; Abstract Expressionism (2016), also curating its tour to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; and David Hockney: A Bigger Picture (2012), curating its tour to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.
At the Royal Academy, Devaney also curated various smaller, but historically important exhibitions including Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch (2021), Phyllida Barlow: cul-de-sac (2019), and Richard Diebenkorn (2015).
In her capacity as head of Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, she worked with many international contemporary artists on both the curation of this annual exhibition and special projects and displays relating to it. Such artists include Roberto Matta, Ed Ruscha, Frank Stella, William Kentridge, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Peter Blake, Cornelia Parker and Michael Craig-Martin.
Devaney left the Royal Academy in 2021 to manage the David Hockney Foundation and David Hockney Inc. in Los Angeles for two years.
Independent curatorial projects include Milton Avery at the Royal Academy (2022), the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Fine Art in Connecticut (2022) and the Modern Museum of Art of Fort Worth in Texas (2021); Afro: 1950-1970: From Italy to America and Back (2022) and Arshile Gorky: 1904–1948 (2019), both at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice; and most recently a large George Condo retrospective at the Musée d’art Moderne in Paris (2025-6).
At the Malta International Contemporary Art Space she has curated Joana Vasconcelos: Transcending the Domestic, 2024; The Space we Inhabit, 2025 and Milton Avery and his Enduring Influence on Contemporary Art, 2025.
