Maxwell L. Anderson
{{Short description|Art museum director (born 1956)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Maxwell L. Anderson
| image = MaxAnderson.jpg
| image_size = 200px
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1956|5|1}}
| birth_place = New York City, U.S.
| education = Dartmouth College (B.A., 1977)
Harvard University (M.A., 1978; Ph.D., 1981)
| occupation = President of Souls Grown Deep Foundation, art historian, author, non-profit executive
| spouse = {{marriage|Jacqueline Buckingham|1995|2016}}
| children = 2
| father = Quentin Anderson
| relatives = Maxwell Anderson (grandfather)
}}
Maxwell L. Anderson (born May 1, 1956){{cite news |last1=Kightlinger |first1=Cathy |title=IMA CEO's resignation stuns many |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/108091494/ima-ceos-resignation-stuns-many/ |access-date=22 August 2022 |work=The Indianapolis Star |date=21 October 2011 |language=en}} is an American art historian, former museum administrator, and non-profit executive, who currently serves as President of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/arts/design/former-dallas-museum-director-to-join-african-american-art-foundation.html|title=Former Dallas Museum Director to Join African-American Art Foundation|last=Kennedy|first=Randy|date=2016-06-23|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-06-27}} Anderson previously served as Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1998 to 2003, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art from 2006 to 2011, and director of Dallas Museum of Art from 2011 to 2015.
Early life and education
The son of Columbia University's Julian Clarence Levi Professor Quentin Anderson and grandson of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Maxwell Anderson, he was born in 1956 in New York City and raised there, attending Collegiate School (New York) and graduating from The Dalton School. He received a B.A. from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1977 with highest distinction in Art History, and M.A. (1978) and Ph.D. (1981) degrees in the history of Art from Harvard University.
Career
=Museums=
Anderson worked as a curatorial assistant at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and subsequently as assistant curator from 1981 to 1987,{{cite news | author=Michael Kimmelman | title=Sorting Out Who Was Who in Rome | work=The New York Times | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/30/arts/met-reinstalls-xxiv-noble-romans.html?scp=3&sq=Maxwell+Anderson+Metropolitan+Museum+of+Art&st=nyt | access-date= September 2, 2010 | date=December 30, 1983}} and became director of the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, Georgia (1987–1995).{{cite news | author=Edward Lewine | title=The Newest Acquisitions Are Wands and Web Sites | work=The New York Times | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/02/arts/art-the-newest-acquisitions-are-wands-and-web-sites.html?scp=27&sq=Maxwell+Anderson+Metropolitan+Museum+of+Art&st=nyt | access-date= September 2, 2010 | date=July 2, 1995}}
While in Atlanta he inaugurated a series of loan projects{{Cite web|url=http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2008/06/archaeological-loans-looking-back-to.html|title=Looting Matters: Archaeological Loans: Looking Back to EUMILOP|last=Gill|first=David|date=2008-06-30|website=Looting Matters|access-date=2017-08-18}} highlighting unpublished treasures from the storerooms of some of the world's leading museums in London, Paris, Rome, Mexico City, and elsewhere, looking for alternatives to buying antiquities from the illicit trade, expanded the Museum{{Cite news|url=https://michaelgraves.com/portfolio/emory-michael-c-carlos-museum/|title=Emory University - Michael Graves Architecture & Design|work=Michael Graves Architecture & Design|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US}} with architect Michael Graves, and greatly enlarged the permanent collection.
Anderson served as the director of Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario from 1995 to 1998,{{Cite news|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/looted-art-controversy|title=Looted Art Controversy|last=Morris|first=Nomi|work=The Canadian Encyclopedia|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en}} where he led the creation of a national exhibition indemnity program, restituted five 17th-century Italian drawings to the Berlin State Museums, which had been looted during the Second World War, initiated the illustrated web-based publication of the museum's collections, made significant acquisitions of European and Canadian art, and organized numerous exhibitions including The Courtauld Collection, one of the Gallery's five best-attended exhibitions in its history.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ago.net/art-gallery-of-ontarios-picasso-exhibition-a-blockbuster-success|title=Art Gallery of Ontario's Picasso Exhibition a Blockbuster Success {{!}} AGO Art Gallery of Ontario|website=www.ago.net|access-date=2017-08-18}}
Anderson served as the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City from 1998 to 2003.{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1035421110162774911|title=Hip Is Out as Director Transforms a Museum|last=Rosenbaum|first=Lee|work=WSJ|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US}} While at the Whitney, he initiated the first multinational art purchase,{{Cite web|url=https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1G1-94404486/a-shared-vision-the-tate-pompidou-and-whitney-have|title="A Shared Vision; the Tate, Pompidou and Whitney Have Clubbed Together to Buy a Video Installation. It's a New Way to Play an Old Museum Game" by Renton, Andrew - The Evening Standard (London, England), November 19, 2002|website=|language=en|access-date=|archive-date=August 18, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170818214647/https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1G1-94404486/a-shared-vision-the-tate-pompidou-and-whitney-have|url-status=dead}} a work by Bill Viola today jointly owned by the Whitney Museum, the Pompidou, and the Tate, to cope with the large scale of many contemporary artworks in variable media, and created a seat for an artist on the Board of Trustees, with Chuck Close as its first incumbent. He established the Museum's first conservation program, introduced new media and architecture as collecting and programming areas, established an M.A. program in curatorial studies with Columbia University, and grew attendance to some 670,000 annually.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} In 2003, Anderson resigned from the Whitney over disagreements with Board leadership about the Museum's artistic direction,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/13/arts/director-of-the-whitney-resigns.html|title=Director of the Whitney Resigns|last=Vogel|first=Carol|date=2003-05-13|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} became a Leadership Fellow at the Yale School of Management's Chief Executive Leadership Program, and subsequently joined a firm advising cultural institutions on planning and programming.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
In 2006, Anderson served as the museum director and CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana from 2006 to 2011.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/arts/artsspecial/28indianap.html|title=Seeking a Lift From the Contemporary|last=Sheets|first=Hilarie M.|date=2007-03-28|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} At the IMA, the museum added over $30 million to its endowment through gifts and pledges, opened a 100-acre sculpture park as well as a conservation science laboratory, acquired the mid-century modern Miller House and Garden estate,[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2008/11/indianapolis-mu.html "Indianapolis Museum of Art strikes deal to acquire house by Eero Saarinen; a model for LACMA?"]. Los Angeles Times, November 18, 2008 and more than doubled museum attendance to reach some 450,000 visitors annually.{{Cite news|url=http://www.dallasartnews.com/2011/10/maxwell-anderson-appointed-as-dallas-museum-of-art-director/|title=Maxwell Anderson Appointed as Dallas Museum of Art Director|date=2011-10-20|work=Dallas Art News|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US}}
Anderson left Indianapolis at the end of 2011 to become the Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas where he served until 2015.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/arts/design/dallas-museum-lands-new-director.html|title=Dallas Museum Lands New Director|last=Kepler|first=Carol Vogel; Compiled By Adam W.|date=2011-10-23|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} His tenure at the Dallas Museum of Art included introducing free general admission,{{Cite news|url=http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20151002-hits-and-misses-quick-hit-editorials-on-the-weeks-highs-and-lows.ece|title=Hits and Misses: Quick-hit editorials on the week's highs and lows|date=2015-11-20|work=Dallas News|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en}} a novel loyalty program attracting over 100,000 members, a fifteen-year loan of a significant collection of Islamic art{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/dallas-museum-of-art-makes-a-great-leap-with-the-keir-collection-1392071461|title=Dallas Museum of Art Makes a Great Leap With the Keir Collection|last=Lawrence|first=Lee|date=2014-02-10|work=Wall Street Journal|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US|issn=0099-9660}} and a program in painting conservation.{{Cite web|url=https://www.utdallas.edu/ah/cism/programsandpartnerships/CSI/DMA-painting-conservation-project/|title=Conservation Science Initiatives - Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Museums at the University of Texas at Dallas|website=www.utdallas.edu|language=en|access-date=2017-08-18}}
He served as a board member of the NewCities Foundation beginning in 2011, and stepped into the role of Executive Director in 2015. He relinquished his position in 2017 and rejoined the Foundation's Board of Trustees.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
In 2016 Anderson was appointed president of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, an Atlanta-based collection of African American art from the Southeast.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/arts/design/former-dallas-museum-director-to-join-african-american-art-foundation.html|title=Former Dallas Museum Director to Join African-American Art Foundation|last=Kennedy|first=Randy|date=2016-06-23|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} Souls Grown Deep Foundation is the only non-profit organization dedicated to documenting, preserving, exhibiting and promoting the work of contemporary African American artists from the American South. A vital resource for this genre, the Foundation's holdings are extensive, with some 1,200 works by more than 160 artists—among them Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Joe Minter, Purvis Young, Ronald Lockett, Mary T. Smith, Joe Light, and the quilt makers of Gee's Bend. Ranging from large-scale assemblages to works on paper, the Foundation is particularly strong in works dating from the death of Martin Luther King to the end of the twentieth century. Anderson introduced a multi-year program to transfer the majority of the Foundation's works in its care to the permanent collections of leading American and international art museums, which has led to acquisitions by multiple institutions, including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the High Museum of Art, the Ackland Art Museum, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
He has lectured and published on general issues of museum practice, especially on the ethical collection of antiquities,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/30/arts/met-reinstalls-xxiv-noble-romans.html|title=MET REINSTALLS XXIV NOBLE ROMANS|last=Pace|first=Eric|date=1983-12-30|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-08-18|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} institutional transparency, free expression, artists' rights, and the use of new technologies.{{Cite web|url=http://www.maxwellanderson.com/PUBLICATIONS.htm|title=MLA Publications|access-date=2010-01-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714052328/http://www.maxwellanderson.com/PUBLICATIONS.htm|archive-date=2011-07-14|url-status=dead}} Anderson is a former president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, a board member of the National Committee for the History of Art, the National Center for Arts Research, and a trustee of the American Federation of Arts. In 1990, he was decorated with the rank of Commendatore (Knight Commander) in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic{{Cite web|url=http://www.quirinale.it/elementi/DettaglioOnorificenze.aspx?decorato=270244|title=Le onorificenze della Repubblica Italiana|last=web|first=Segretariato generale della Presidenza della Repubblica-Servizio sistemi informatici- reparto|website=Quirinale|access-date=2017-08-18}} and in 2010, he was awarded the French Republic's rank of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters).{{Cite web|url=http://frenchculture.org/archive/speeches/france-honors-maxwell-l-anderson|title=France Honors Maxwell L. Anderson {{!}} French Culture|website=frenchculture.org|access-date=2017-08-18}}
=Antiquities=
Anderson has long worked in the field of antiquities, serving as an assistant curator in the Department of Greek and Roman Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1982 to 1987,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/30/arts/met-reinstalls-xxiv-noble-romans.html|title=MET REINSTALLS XXIV NOBLE ROMANS|last=Pace|first=Eric|date=1983-12-30|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-06-27}} and holding teaching positions in the field of Roman art history at the University of Rome II, Princeton University, and Emory University. At the Michael C. Carlos Museum he negotiated several long-term loans of previously unpublished archaeological material to underscore the value of provenance.{{Cite web|url=http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2008/06/archaeological-loans-looking-back-to.html|title=Looting Matters: Archaeological Loans: Looking Back to EUMILOP|last=Gill|first=David|date=2008-06-30|website=Looting Matters|access-date=2016-06-27}}
In 2007, while director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, he recognized 1970 as a "bright line" when acquiring ancient art.{{Cite web|url=https://www.archaeological.org/news/advocacy/96|title=Indianapolis Museum of Art Declares Moratorium on Antiquities Acquisitions - Archaeological Institute of America|website=www.archaeological.org|access-date=2016-06-27}} He advocated changes in the acquisitions policies of the Association of Art Museum Directors as founding chair of its Task Force on Archaeological Materials & Ancient Art beginning in 2003, culminating in its 2008 adoption of a bright line of 1970 as well.{{Cite web|url=https://aamd.org/for-the-media/press-release/strengthened-guidelines-on-the-acquisition-of-archaeological-material|title=Strengthened Guidelines on the Acquisition of Archaeological Material and Ancient Art Issued by Association of Art Museum Directors|access-date=2016-06-27}}
In December 2016 Oxford University Press published his book "Antiquities: What Everyone Needs to Know"{{Cite web|url=http://www.antiquitiesbook.com/|title=HOME|website=Antiquities|access-date=2016-06-27}}
=New media=
Anderson was one of the earliest proponents of using new media technologies to advance public interest in art.{{Cite web|url=http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december04/green/12green.html|title=How Fares the Wired Museum? Report on the 32nd Annual Conference of the Museum Computer Network (November 10-13, 2004, Minneapolis, Minnesota)|website=www.dlib.org|access-date=2016-07-30}} As Liaison for Information Technology of the AAMD and a Member of the Advisory Council of the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP) he helped found the Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) in 1997 and the Art Museum Network in 1999.{{cite web | title=Maxwell L. Anderson | work=Biographies | publisher=Library of Congress | url=https://www.loc.gov/bicentennial/bios/preserve/anderson.html }}
In 2008, he modeled museum transparency with the award-winning IMA Dashboard {{cite web|date=April 11, 2008 |title=MW2008: Announcing the Best of the Web 2008 |url=http://conference.archimuse.com/forum/mw2008_announcing_best_web_2008 |access-date=September 2, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100912060938/http://conference.archimuse.com/forum/mw2008_announcing_best_web_2008 |archive-date=September 12, 2010 }} and in 2009, he launched ArtBabble, a site for art museums worldwide to share video content.{{cite news | author=Kate Taylor | title=ArtBabble Site Opens Window to World of Museums | work=The New York Times | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/arts/design/07babb.html | access-date=September 2, 2010 | date=April 7, 2009}}
Personal life
Anderson married Jacqueline Buckingham Anderson in 1995. They were briefly divorced in 2013, before announcing their remarriage three months later.{{cite news |last1=Boucher |first1=Brian |title=Five Surprising Things About Maxwell Anderson |url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/five-things-about-maxwell-anderson-336189 |access-date=22 August 2022 |work=Artnet News |date=29 September 2015}} They are now no longer married. They have two children.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.maxwellanderson.com/ www.maxwellanderson.com]
- [http://www.soulsgrowndeep.org Souls Grown Deep Foundation]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Maxwell L.}}
Category:Writers from New York City
Category:Dartmouth College alumni
Category:Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Category:Directors of museums in the United States
Category:American nonprofit chief executives
Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Category:People associated with the Whitney Museum of American Art