The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fantastic Arts introduced Thursday that it has named Kristen Shepherd as its new president and CEO. Shepherd will begin within the position on February 9.
Shepherd, 54, beforehand served as govt director and CEO on the Museum of Fantastic Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida for 5 and a half years. She additionally held management positions on the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, the Whitney Museum in New York, and Sotheby’s in New York and London. She has additionally served as a advisor to numerous museums by way of her agency Shepherd Lane + Associates.
“PAFA’s assortment is superlative, and it demonstrates that American artwork is an ever-evolving story,” Shepherd stated in an announcement. “The truth that the establishment has been accumulating up to date artwork since its inception in 1805 and was the nation’s very first tremendous arts college is a outstanding legacy and mandate. PAFA has all the time been on the forefront of nurturing, educating, and accumulating necessary work for each technology of American artists. It’s a privilege to construct on this basis and determine daring new methods to steer the establishment into its subsequent chapter as a power on the planet of American artwork.”
Shepherd joins at a tumultous time for the establishment. Final Might, it closed its school, ending its degree-granting applications, which then-president Eric Pryor blamed on rising prices and low enrollment. The museum has continued to supply different instructional applications, together with a Okay-12 arts program and persevering with schooling courses.
Established in 1805, PAFA has a storied checklist of alumni, together with artists Mary Cassatt, Robert Henri, Thomas Eakins, Alexander Milne Calder, Alexander Stirling Calder, and Mom Goose illustrator Jessie Wilcox Smith.
This yr, PAFA will reopen its iconic Frank Furness and George Hewitt-designed constructing following renovations with the exhibitions akin to “Threaded Currents” (opening in the present day). Future reveals embrace “Our bodies and Souls: Kohler Assortment” and “A Nation of Artists.”
