Two former museum chiefs are heading to New York—and to positions at high-profile contemporary-art galleries. David Ross, a former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, has become a partner in Albion with Michael Hue-Williams, while Robert Fitzpatrick, most recently director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, has been named international managing director of Haunch of Venison.

“I wanted to work more closely with artists, rather than patrons and trustees,” says Ross, explaining his transition to the commercial side of the industry. Fitzpatrick agrees, describing dealers as having a “passion for art, artists and helping their work become better known.”

For both Ross and Fitzpatrick, the first order of business will be to launch the Manhattan branches of these London-based galleries. Expected to open in a year or so, Albion’s U.S. base will be built either in Chelsea or on the Lower East Side, by architect David Adjaye, whose design objects are sold at the gallery. For Haunch of Venison, founded in London in 2002 by Harry Blain and Graham Southern, the New York satellite, scheduled to open this fall, is the third, after ones in Zurich and Berlin. Twenty floors above Rockefeller Center, the 20,000-square-foot, two-story gallery, designed by Steven Learner Studio, “looks out on all of Manhattan,” says Fitzpatrick. “It’s a space I think artists will respond to very strongly.” The specific program has yet to be announced, but Fitzpatrick says there will be shows of both historic works and emerging artists.

It’s no coincidence that the new Haunch of Venison is around the corner from Christie’s. The auction house acquired the gallery last year, a move that caused much concern in the art world about the blurring of boundaries. “There is confusion in the minds of some,” notes Fitzpatrick. “What does it mean to be owned by an auction house? Part of the challenge that I face is to clarify that.”

"Gallery Goers" originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2008 Table of Contents.