Philadelphia Museum of Art Appoints Interim Leaders

Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art

Gail Harrity, the Philadelphia Museum of Art's chief operating officer and interim CEO

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PHILADELPHIA—The Philadelphia Museum of Art board of trustees has announced the appointment of chief operating officer Gail Harrity as the museum's interim chief executive officer and of associate director of collections Alice Beamesderfer as interim head of curatorial affairs. Harrity joined the museum in 1997 as COO; Beamesderfer was first hired in 1987 and has served in a succession of positions, including special assistant to the director for projects and assistant director for collections. Both of their appointments, effective immediately, come in the wake of the unexpected death of Anne d'Harnoncourt, the museum's former director and CEO. A selection committee will be organized in the upcoming weeks to search for a permanent successor. 

NEW YORK—The Municipal Art Society of New York has announced that Vin Cipolla will serve as its next president. Cipolla, the current president and chief executive of the National Park Foundation, will assume the position in early 2009. He previously served as the executive vice president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Cipolla will succeed Kent L. Barwick, who will take a one-year sabbatical before returning to the Society as president emeritus.

Farewells
OLD LYME, Conn.—Donaldson C. Pillsbury, the lawyer who led Sotheby's through its myriad legal problems after a price-fixing scandal, died on June 19. Pillsbury, 67, lived in New York and died of a heart attack. He was a longtime partner at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, which specializes in banking law, first joining the firm in 1967 and becoming a partner within five years. Pillsbury had already retired when, in 1998, he became Sotheby's worldwide general counsel. In 2000, the house was charged with colluding with Christie's, and the chairman and chief executives of both houses went to prison. Pillsbury led Sotheby's through the legal scandal, helping the company restore its reputation. He was named chairman of Sotheby's North and South American earlier this year.

BERLIN—Pioneering video and performance artist Nan Hoover died on June 9 at the age of 77. Hoover was known for her formalist video/performance works that explore the human body and its relationships to its surroundings, though she originally worked in painting and drawing until 1974. American born, she became a Dutch citizen in 1975 and lived in Amsterdam for almost four decades. She received a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Fellowship in 1980. Her works have been widely exhibited, including at Documentas 6 and 8, the Museum of Modern Art, the Berlin Film Festival, and the Venice Biennale.

CHICAGO—American architect Walter Netsch died on June 15. He was 88. Netsch was a leader of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and was known for his unabashedly modernist buildings that some in the architectural world loved and others criticized. One of his first buildings in Chicago was the Inland Steel Building, which is now an official Chicago landmark. He led the design of the Air Force academy in Colorado Springs starting in 1954, and the cathedral-like chapel that he built, with 17 silver spires, was originally derided by those in the architectural field, only to be honored in 1995 with the 25-Year Award from the American Institute of Architects. He also designed a number of libraries, academic buildings for colleges, and the east wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.