Many Museums Seek New Directors

As museum directors retire and the qualifications needed to fill the posts become more stringent, the Getty Leadership Institute, in Los Angeles, is working to train the next generation of arts leaders, reports The New York Times.

“I don’t remember the number of openings being this high since 1983 or ’84,” says Mimi Gaudieri, executive director of the Association of Art Museum Directors. “A lot of these people stayed at their museums for many years, but they’re now in their 60s, and it’s just time.”

At its three-week museum-director “boot camp,” the Getty’s Museum Leadership Institute aims to “decrease the volatility and increase the walk-in skills of first-time C.E.O.‘s,” says Philip Nowlen, who leads the program.

Participants point to the widened requirements of museum directors, who are expected to be able fund raisers, with training in business as well as in art history.

“The demands put on a director now are so much broader than 20 years ago,” says Lisa Green, director of communications and design at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. “Then there was greater public support, so you didn’t have to raise as much money. Nobody thought about earned income revenue from restaurants or shops or partnering with Wolfgang Puck.”

In an accompanying article, Phillippe de Montebello, who has led the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the past 30 years, repeats that sentiment.

“If we were to project forward the person I was 30 years ago, that person wouldn’t remotely be qualified for this job,” he says. “I wouldn’t want the job either, because frankly I wouldn’t want to spend so much of my time on non-artistic matters.”

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