Sylvia L. Yount.
Photo: courtesy the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

After 48 years with the museum, Morrison H. Heckscher is retiring as the chairman of the American Wing at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, as per a press release from the institution. Sylvia L. Yount, chief curator and department head of American art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, (VFMA) will succeed Heckscher (who will stay on as a curator emeritus) in the fall. The VMFA is also losing Robin Nicolson, its deputy director for art and education since 2010, who, according to ArtDaily, will be the new director of the Frick Art and Historical Center. In addition, the Met also announced five senior-level promotions, each effective July 1: Carrie Rebora Barratt as deputy director for collections and administration; Christine Coulson as chief adviser to the director; Luke Syson as chairman of the department of European sculpture and decorative arts; Lisa Pilosi as conservator in charge of the department of objects conservation; and Jeffrey S. Spar as vice president for technology and chief technology officer.

John Marciari, formerly the San Diego Museum of Art‘s curator of European art and head of provenance research, is joining New York’s Morgan Library & Museum as the head of drawings and prints, filling the vacancy left by the departure last July of Lina Wolk-Simon (now an independent curator), reports Art in America. The Morgan has also endowed a curatorial position in the department, naming Jennifer Tonkovich (with the department since 1998) as the first Eugene and Clare Thaw Curator of Drawings and Prints (see Gallerist article).

Radio and television personality Ryan Seacrest has been named a trustee at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), as reported by artnet News. Meanwhile, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, Christina Yu Yu is leaving her position as curator of Chinese and Korean art at LACMA to direct the University of Southern California Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, replacing interim director Selma Holo, who has served in that role since December while continuing to hold her primary job as director of the school’s Fisher Museum of Art.

Chinese contemporary art expert Melissa Chiu director of the Asia Society, has accepted the same post at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. As reported by artnet News, former director Richard Koshalek left the museum a year ago after a failed fundraising campaign.

artnet welcomes Cornell DeWitt as its new vice president of business development. As artnet News reported previously, DeWitt recently left New Jersey’s Mana Contemporary after a five-week stink as their vice president of development and marketing. Formerly, he served as director of PULSE Contemporary Art Fair from 2010–13.

Sandy Nairne.
Photo: via Openers.jp.

Sandy Nairne, director of London’s National Portrait Gallery for the last 12 years, has announced his resignation to pursue writing and advisory work, effective February, reports the BBC. He recently completed a successful campaign to purchase an Anthony van Dyck self-portrait for the museum and keep it from leaving the country (see artnet News report).

As Paris’s Musée Picasso prepares to reopen after a five year refurbishment, the institution has hired Laurent Le Bon of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France, as its new director, replacing the recently fired Anne Baldassari (see artnet News report).

After less than a year on the job, Charlie Manzo is leaving online auction house Paddle8, where he is a senior specialist, to join New York’s Metro Pictures, as artnet News reported last week.

Two-and-a-half years into Artlantic, an oft-panned planned five-year residency with the Atlantic City Alliance, Lance Fung and Fung Collaboratives are leaving Atlantic City to focus on other projects, such as “Nonuments” in Washington, D.C., reports Philly.com.

According to a press release, Emma Dexter, the exhibitions director at Timothy Taylor Gallery, has been named director of visual arts at the British Council, succeeding Andrea Rose, who steps down after 20 years on the job.

The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco has hired Jamie Stevens of London’s Cubitt Gallery as its new curator (see Art in America article).

California’s Stanford University has hired two staffers from the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, reports the Lansing State Journal. Alison Gass, the Broad’s deputy director and chief curator, will join the Cantor Center for Visual Arts as associate director for collections, exhibitions, and curatorial affairs, while Aimee Shapiro, director of education at the Broad, will serve as director of programming and engagement at the Anderson Collection. Also parting ways with the Broad are Gass’s husband, Alex Hathaway, the associate curator of architecture and design, and Shapiro’s wife, Tammy Fortin, the manager of public programs.

Marie Heilich.
Photo: Daniel Terna, courtesy White Flag Projects.

French artist Camille Henrot’s studio manager, Marie Heilich, will take over as assistant director at St. Louis’s White Flag Projects for Sam Korman, who is moving to Italy to work on an exhibition at Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, reports Art Media Agency.

The National Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC, has elected a new president, New York investor and philanthropist Frederick W. Beinecke. As reported by Artdaily, he succeeds Victoria P. Sant, who has held the job since 2003 and will remain on the institution’s board through July 2015.

The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center has a new executive director in Julie Delliquanti, the curator of art|DBF at the Decatur Book Festival, as reported by Burnaway.
The Michener Art Museum of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has named Kirsten Jensen, director of the John F. Folinsbee Catalogue Raisonné for the past 10 years, as its new senior curator (as reported by Artforum).
A. Madison Cario, a seven-year veteran of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center of Performing Arts, will be the new director of the Georgia Institute of Technology Office of the Arts, reports Burnaway.
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center has hired David A. Dahlin, executive vice president of Colorado Springs’s Compassion International, where he has worked for 19 years, as its new president and CEO.
Jennifer Navva Milliken, founder of independent curatorial practice INTER ALIA projects, will join the Bellevue Arts Museum of Bellevue, Washington, as curator of craft, reports Artdaily.