15 August (extract)

Michael Brand’s Five-Year Tenure Leaves VMFA in Strong Position

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Director Dr. Michael Brand will leave Richmond to accept the position as director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Brand’s resignation comes after five years as chief executive officer of the commonwealth’s art museum and will become effective at the end of November 2005.
“We are sorry to see Michael leave,” said Charlotte Minor, president of the board of trustees. “As a result of his strong leadership, along with a committed board and a seasoned senior management team, VMFA will maintain its ongoing momentum while addressing ambitious goals set forth in our strategic plan.

“During his tenure, the museum’s capital campaign has been extremely successful and is now in its final stage. To date, the campaign has raised $158 million with approximately $5 million remaining for the building and campus expansion. We will break ground this fall and by 2008 will have completely transformed the campus with an internationally significant work of architecture,” she said.

“While I regret seeing Michael leave, I wish him the best in his new challenge,” said Governor Mark R. Warner. “The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is a leading museum with an exceptional collection of art, and having the two most recent directors move on to such world-class institutions as the Getty and the Cleveland Museum of Art is a ringing endorsement of the high regard in which VMFA is held.”

“It has been a great privilege to lead VMFA during such a defining moment in its history,” said Brand. “Virginia is indeed fortunate to have a state art museum with a richly diverse collection, a staff with a dedicated work ethic, and supportive trustees and foundation directors. It has been gratifying to help strengthen the museum’s educational outreach initiatives and build the state art collection using the private endowments created by donors to benefit VMFA in perpetuity. Likewise it has been an honor to work on Rick Mather + SMBW’s magnificent design for the most comprehensive expansion in the museum’s history. The new McGlothlin Wing, parking deck, and E. Claiborne and Lora Robins Sculpture Garden will form a cultural oasis in the heart of the capital city. A continuing strong partnership with the Commonwealth and generous private supporters envisages a bright future for VMFA as a major international art museum,” he said.

Under Brand’s leadership, VMFA also successfully developed a strategic plan and has implemented a new graphic identity to reflect the museum’s transformation. In addition, a series of four exhibitions focusing on the masterpieces of the collection, titled “Look Here,” has been developed for the next three years and will travel throughout Virginia to share the state’s collection with a wider audience.

VMFA has made significant acquisitions in a wide range of areas under Brand’s directorship. Notable acquisitions include an important Baroque oil painting by Artemesia Gentileschi, a Gandharan seated Buddha, an American still life by Severin Roesen, a pair of ancient Chinese seated Bodhisattvas, and contemporary works by Bill Viola, Kiki Smith and Ravender Reddy. An important gift-purchase from the Robert and Nancy Nooter collection of African art will elevate VMFA’s African collection to one of the most significant in a U.S. museum. Additionally, Brand negotiated with Frances G. and James W. McGlothlin to bequeath their collection of American art and to give financial support valued at well above $100 million to the museum.

Exhibitions during Brand's tenure ran the gamut from French painting -- under the auspices of the French Regional and American Museum Exchange (FRAME) -- to Native American art from the Peabody Essex Museum, to the work of contemporary artist Martin Puryear, to “Mr. Whistler’s Galleries,” an exhibition organized in partnership with the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. “I am very happy for Michael Brand, because going on to lead the Getty Museum is a significant attainment for anyone in the museum field,” said Stanley F. Pauley, chairman of VMFA’s capital campaign. “His talents are such that he richly deserves to take over the position. We will all miss his leadership, but he has brought us to a point where we can proceed with confidence to finish the major expansion upon which we have embarked.”

J. Harwood Cochrane, museum trustee and longtime donor said, “Michael Brand, like his predecessors Paul Perrot and Katharine Lee Reid, enthusiastically endorsed our efforts to add important works to the American collection. Louise and I suspect that he, being Australian, had to do a bit more homework. We believe he did it very well, and we wish him success at the Getty.”

Trustee Frances McGlothlin and her husband James, who are major American art collectors, said, “We are saddened that Michael is leaving as we have enjoyed a congenial relationship with him. We are very excited for him because the Getty is the best of the best. We look forward to a great future at VMFA.”

Minor said, “A search committee of trustees will be appointed within the coming week. In the interim, the trustee’s executive committee and senior staff will be responsible for the museum’s ongoing operations.”

The museum is internationally known for landmark gifts of modern American paintings and Art Nouveau and Art Deco works from Sydney and Frances Lewis of Richmond in the 1980s and for its collection of Indian and Himalayan art, the core of which was purchased from the Nasli Heeramaneck collection in the 1960s with funds from the late Paul Mellon of Upperville [Va.]. The museum's outstanding decorative arts collection has been further enhanced over the years by a spectacular collection of 18th- and 19th-century English silver given by Jerome and Rita Gans of New York and a growing American collection made possible by an endowment created by Louise and Harwood Cochrane.

Admission is free to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which is one of only four state-supported museums in the United States. VMFA serves as the flagship art museum of the Commonwealth of Virginia and as the headquarters for an extensive education network that aims to bring the best of world art, past and present, to every corner of the state. More information is available by telephoning 804.340.1400 and on this Web site.