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Breaking: Met Names New President

The Met’s board of trustees this afternoon anointed Daniel H. Weiss, who is 57, as president, succeeding Emily K. Rafferty, who is retiring as of Mar. 31.

He has a tough act to follow, and he will undoubtedly bring different skills to the job. For one thing, he is an “accomplished art historian” who is currently president of Haverford College. That will change the dynamic between the president and the director, Thomas P. Campbell. Rafferty always assiduously avoided commenting on matters about art–even though she spent some 40 years at the museum, 10 as president.

Here’s a brief bio of Weiss, taken from the press release:

Daniel H. Weiss, who was born in Newark, N.J., and raised on Long Island, earned his B.A. in psychology with a concentration in art history at George Washington University in 1979; his M.A. with concentrations in Medieval and Modern Art from Johns Hopkins University in 1982; his M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management in 1985; and in 1992 his Ph.D. from Hopkins, with concentrations in Western Medieval and Byzantine Art and a minor in Classical Greek Art and Architecture.

He began his career as museum shops manager at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, and later served as an associate, then a senior associate, at Booz, Allen & Hamilton in New York.

After earning his Ph.D., Dr. Weiss became an assistant professor of art history at Johns Hopkinsâ€™ Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, rising over a decade-long academic career there to associate professor (1996), full professor (1999), chair of the History of Art Department (1998-2001), and Dean of the Faculty (2001-2002). From 2002-2005 Dr. Weiss was James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, overseeing 2,700 undergraduates, 1,500 graduate students, and 300 faculty in 23 departments.

From 2005-2013 Dr. Weiss served as President and Professor of Art History at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania…Â In 2013, Dr. Weiss became president of Haverford…

Weiss has published on art and he is on the board of the Kress Foundation, among others.

While I doubt that Weiss can match the connections and relationships that Rafferty had–which were incredibly important to the museum–Weiss brings academic credentials that may, just maybe, reinforce the need to focus on the art. That’s been a bit lacking lately at the Met under Campbell.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Met

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.

Badly Bungled Philanthropy

The New York Philharmonic* just gave everyone a lesson in how not to fundraise. I am talking, of course, about the announcement that David Geffen has promised $100 million to the Phil for the renovation of Avery Fisher Hall. Â There are two problems with this gift.

First, the Phil’s leadership seems to have been enchanted by that number, the same amount David Koch gave to rename the New York State Theater after himself five years ago. (And the same amount that Stephen Schwarzman gave to the New York Public Library before that, but that’s another story.) It’s simply not enough–not for the reason, five years difference in time, mentioned in passing by The New York Times. Inflation is low and using the government’s inflation calculator, there would be only a $7 million or so difference. (Actually, Koch made the announcement in 2008, so I’m not sure how the Times arrived at five years, but…that’s what its story said.)

It’s not enough because of proportionality. Refurbishing the New York State Theater cost about $50 million to start, according to the Times, and another $150 million for Phase II. So Koch provided half of the price tag.

Now look at Avery Fisher Hall–the gutting and remaking of it is currently estimated at $500 million, but with construction slated to begin in 2019–still four years hence–that’s a squirrely number, as evenÂ Katherine G. Farley, chairwoman of Lincoln Center, has admitted. Geffen is getting his name on the building for providing less than 20% of the cost. Farley et. al. say his gift will galvanize other donors–why? Where are they going to put their names? On the stage? Sure, sell the stage–but it can’t be for much more than $25 million, say. Make it $50 million, fine–how many stages have they got?

That means the NYPhil is left raising smaller gifts–a lot of them. Do you know how hard that is, to make smallish gifts add up to $400 million-plus?

Just as bad, the Phil made the same mistake with Geffen that it made with Avery Fisher. Both got naming rights in perpetuity. So several years ago, the Phil was stuck when it tried to rename the hall and last year it agreed, scandalously, in my mind, to pay Fisher’s heir $15 million. Koch agreed to 50 years; I know other donors who want and get 75 years. But truly in perpetuity? That idea should be buried. No organization should define it as infinity.

Museums should take a lesson here: don’t do what the Phil did. Don’t be that stupid.

No wonder Geffen is smiling.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter (top); the NYPhil (bottom)

*I consult to a foundation that supports the NYPhil

MFA’s Gets A Load of Rothschild Loot

Literally. Bettina Burr (known as Nina, pictured left)–the daughter of Baroness Bettina Looram de Rothschild, who reclaimed about 250 pieces of Nazi-looted art from Austria after it passed a new restitution law in 1998–has donated 186 objects to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The trove, which includesÂ jewelry, jeweled boxes, furniture, prints, drawings, miniatures, paintings and rare books, is most of what remains that had been passed down to her and her relatives from her ancestors in the Austrian Rothschild family. The great collectors were Nathaniel (d. 1905) and Albert von Rothschild (d. 1911).

I’ve written the story of the gift forÂ tomorrow’s New York Times, and it’s online now:Â Rothschild Family Treasures Find a Resting Place in Boston.

But there’s much more in my notes, for example:

Among the highlights are George Romney’sÂ Portrait of Emma HartÂ (at right), of the woman who later became Lady Hamilton and was Romney’s favorite model. This seems to be an early version of her, and though the MFA Â did not put a date on it, it said that “the painting was in good condition when it arrived at the MFA, and cleaning revealed its glowing colors and exciting brushwork. The location of this particular work was previously unknown to scholars, and it has since proven to be the primary version of one of the artistsâ€™ most popular compositions.”

There’s also aÂ Swiss-made Oval snuff box with miniature of Catherine the Great (about 1775, pictured below) and many pieces of jewelry and jeweled snuff boxes and objets de vertu.

Thomas Michie, the MFA’s senior curator of European decorative arts and sculpture, said that the gift “transports us into the ranks of European museums that own small, precious objects, the kinds of things that have not traditionally been Yankee taste.”Â Which museums, I asked? He said the Wallace Collection and the V&A–though not in quantity. “Our gift is small in quantity, but it is wonderful in quality.”

Books are another highlight, said Michie, adding that there will be three cases of them in the exhibition of the gift, which opens on Mar. 1 and runs till June 21:Â Restoring a Legacy: Rothschild Family Treasures.

You can see more in the museum’s press release.

When the exhibition ends, 14 items will be returned to Burr, as they are promised gifts, to be transferred when she dies. But the rest, Michie said, can and will probably be integrated with the rest of the collection. “I haven’t looked that far ahead,” he said, “but it won’t be hard to fold a lot of these items into the permanent collection galleries. The museum is actually planning an 18th Century French gallery, though “it’s not funded yet.” But, he added, “now we have the material for it, and that’s where these things will turn up.”

One of the things I loved about this story concerns Burr herself. Her relationship with the museum began when she volunteered and became a tour guide, giving introductory and specialized tours. Later she worked on the cataloging of Japanese woodblock prints and became an overseer. It was only in 2006 that she was elected to the board of trustees.

Burr told me that she talked about making this gift with her mother, who died in 2012. “She thought it was a fine idea,” she said.

Indeed it is.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the MFA

The Heard Museum Loses Its Director To…

More musical chairs. The other day the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa announced that it had hired James Pepper Henry as its new executive director; he starts Mar. 30.

Pepper Henry (at right) has a lot of experience with Native American art. Before the Heard, he had been director of theÂ Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center,Â associate director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian,Â founding director of the Kanza Museum in Kaw City, Okla.; interim curator of American Indian Art at the Portland Art Museum; gallery director at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in Portland, Ore.; and gallery director for the Institute of Alaska Native Arts in Fairbanks, Alaska.

He is a member of theÂ Kaw Nation and affiliated with the Muscogee Creek nation, which–he pointed out in the press release–is a heritage he shared withÂ Thomas Gilcrease, the museum’s founder.

The Gilcrease collection has a wider span, though–there’s a lot of American art and history, particularly Western art, that is not Native American. His claim to fame at the Heard was BUILD!Â Toy Brick Art at the Heard. a show last summer that showed how “American Indian and non-American Indian LEGO brick artists” made many “creative and surprising forms” from the toy. That’s a tad too commercial for my taste—families were invited to join in–but it was “theÂ most successful summer exhibit in the [Heard] museum’s history, increasing museum attendance by 58 percentÂ and memberships by 150 percent.”

We all like measurements of success, but… sometimes the numbers complicate rather than clarify the story. Attendance, just strictly attendance, is not the best measure of success for a director.

That’s not a comment on Pepper Henry–I don’t know what else he did at the Heard–it’s a comment on art museums in general nowadays.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Gilcrease (top) and the Heard (bottom)

NEA Reveals The Real Targets For Art Museums

The National Endowment for the Arts released three reports today on arts participation, barriers to it, the impact of the arts and culture industries on the economy–all information from 2012. There’s much to digest. Here’s the link to them.

But I’m going to paste here just four charts from them that speak to one aspect of the environment for arts museums. Each one tracks interest in going to an art exhibit by people who had not been to an art museum in the last 12 months. They were asked:

During the last 12 months, was there a performance or exhibit that you wanted to go to, but did not?

Chart No. 1: As you can see, about 5 percent of both females and (a little less) males said they had been interested in going to see an art show. That’s it.

Chart No. 2: When you cut the data by age, younger people–aged 19 to 29 and aged 30 to 44–are much less interested in going to art exhibits than are older people. The 45 to 59 age group is the only one exceeding 5 percent–and just by a percent at most.

Chart No. 3: The race/ethnicity data is also no surprise, really. Non-Hispanic whites are at 5 percent; African-Americans/Hispanic are a little below that, and Other is a little above that. I’m guessing–but based on my knowledge of similar previous surveys, the most interested “other” are Asians, who have had higher arts participation rates in the past.

What do all of these charts say? That, across the whole population, interest in attending art exhibits is low.

I think it also means that museums that are programming for the masses–the 95 percent of those not already going–are making a mistake. They just aren’t that interested in art, and it’s doubtful that they will be drawn in huge numbers to art museums, no matter what gimmick a museum tries.

Instead, museums should focus on that 5 percent of the population, what the NEA survey calledÂ “interested non-attendees.”

Why aren’t these people going to art museums, even once a year? See the last chart.

According to the NEA survey, the biggest factor was–wait for it–no time. More than 50 percent say they’ve got too much to do or too much work, outside the museum-going. The next reason was “too difficult to get there.” Again, based on past knowledge of other surveys, this is the “there’s nowhere to park” response. Museums outside big cities have to figure out the parking problems.

Only then came cost–it looks like about 28 percent. To me, this means seeking more underwriting from donors for free days or evenings. I am regularly told by museum directors (and others) that trustees push for big attendance numbers for special shows. Fine, then development directors should priorities asking them to help offer free admission–or reduced admission–at certain times.

Finally, the last big reason is that the interested non-attendees have no one to go with. Sure, it is more fun for most people to view art with someone(s). And in some cities doing anything alone is not comfortable for most people. Museums should attempt to change that, to emphasize occasionally that museums are wonderful experiences for someone on their own.

It is true that the vast majority of people go to museums with someone. Art museums are social spaces. At MoMA, Glenn Lowry told me not too long ago, the number is 85 percent–if memory serves. But they’re not just social spaces. What about luring the other 15 percent, not with singles nights, but just a little attention to the experience for someone on his or her own?

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the NEA

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