Frick Curator Named to Steer Troubled San Francisco Museums

Following a 13-month search for a new director, San Francisco’s Fine Arts Museums on Wednesday hired Colin Bailey, chief curator at New York’s Frick Collection, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The London native is an internationally recognized expert on 18th- and 19th-century French painting who previously worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. He will take up the Fine Arts post on June 1, succeeding John Buchanan, who died in December 2011.

Since Mr. Buchanan’s death, the San Francisco institution, which consists of the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor, has been plagued by internal turmoil stoked by labor unrest and the summary firings of top curators.