NEW YORK - There are no less than 20 museum directorships open in the United States at the moment. The latest addition to the list is the Miami Art Museum, which announced this week that its director of ten years, Suzanne Delehanty, will step down at the end of this year. The museum is in the opening stages of an expansion project, for a building of more than 125,000 square feet, which will more than triple its current space.

LA Story

Two of the most-discussed open posts are in Los Angeles, where The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is seeking a replacement for its director of ten years, Andrea Rich, who announced her resignation last week. And the Getty seeks to fill the post of Deborah Gribbon, who resigned last fall. Of the two, LACMA's situation is more immediately jarring. When Rich announced that she would retire in November, the museum had just made public its plans for an expansion project by Renzo Piano that will integrate LACMA's six-building campus and create a new museum within it, The Broad Contemporary Museum, named after its patrons, museum trustees Edythe and Eli Broad. The museum stated in a press release that it has already raised $156 million, making possible the first phase of construction.

Recent developments at the Cleveland Museum of Art are somewhat similar. In early March, the museum, which boasts a formidable $700 million endowment, announced plans for a $258 million expansion and renovation by Rafael Vinoly. A month beforehand, director Katharine Reid had announced her retirement. She had been on the job for five years.

Hello Expansion Plan, Goodbye Director

The coincidence of a major expansion project timed with a director's departure is not as out of the ordinary as one might think. An article by Steven Litt in the Cleveland Plain Dealer reporting on Reid's departure explained, "[Directors of other major museums across the United States] said that retiring on the eve of a major addition was not unusual, because such projects can take a decade or more from conception to completion. James Wood, former director of the Art Institute of Chicago, retired last year after laying plans for an expansion designed by architect Renzo Piano. James Cuno, the new director in Chicago, will follow through. Roger Berkowitz, former director of the Toledo Museum of Art, retired last year after planning a new Glass Pavilion, which will be completed under his successor, Don Bacigalupi."

Calling All Candidates

But the directorships in Los Angeles and Cleveland aren't the only major posts open at the moment. A regularly updated list of open museum directorships on the web site of the Association of Art Museum Directors includes the Des Moines Art Center, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (which comprises the de Young Museum, which will open a new Herzog & de Meuron-designed building in October, and the Legion of Honor), the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Neuberger Museum of Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum, the Frye Art Museum, the Meadows Museum and the El Paso Museum of Art.

These Are Not Easy Jobs

What accounts for all these open posts? The most obvious answer might simply be that many museum directors are nearing retirement age. Edward Able, president of the American Association of Museums, told Artinfo.com "When I look at directors at or approaching retirement age, it is astounding." He says better structures need to be put in place for moving museum professionals into these senior management positions. "These are not easy jobs. The issue for museum people is that they came into the field because they were dedicated to the program, and to the discipline the museum deals with, whether arts or science or history. But when you are a director today there are a number of demands on you and work you must do on a day to day basis, which leaves precious little time to work with the product." His main concern is the amount of time directors must spend fundraising; some directors, he says, spend 80% of their time doing so.