PRINCETON—James Steward will succeed Susan Taylor as director of the Princeton University Art Museum. A specialist in 18th- and 19th-century European art and culture, Steward was the director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) and a faculty member at the university since 1998. At UMMA, Steward organized and oversaw the planning, fund-raising, and construction of a $42 million expansion and restoration project. He was responsible for executing major scholarly exhibitions such as "The Romanovs Collect: European Art from the State Hermitage Museum," "Georgia O'Keeffe and the Sublime Landscape," and "The Lens of Impressionism," which will open in October 2009. Before UMMA, Steward worked at the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California from 1992 to 1998. He serves on the government affairs committee of the Association of Art Museum Directors.

RENO—The Nevada Museum of Art selected William L. Fox as the first director of its Center for Art + Environment. A critic, science writer, and cultural geographer, Fox will be responsible for the development of long-range growth and programming plans for the center, including exhibition and publications series, residencies for artists and scholars, and creating relationships with other institutions around the world. An author of numerous books, articles, and essays, Fox worked at the Nevada Arts Council from 1979 to 1993; he was director of the council for seven years.

SHANGHAI—ShContemporary has announced Colin Chinnery as the art fair’s new director. A Beijing-based artist and curator, Chinnery has devoted himself to bringing avant-garde contemporary culture to a broader Chinese audience. He has created shows such as “Sound and the City,” China’s first major sound art project, and “Aftershock,” a survey of contemporary British art. He was previously chief curator and deputy director at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art.

RICHMOND—The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has selected Stephen D. Bonadies as chief conservator and deputy director for collections management, beginning March 2. Bonadies hails from the Cincinnati Art Museum, where he was chief conservator, director of museum services, deputy director, and interim co-director. Before that, he worked in conservation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Friuli Italian Art and Monument Committee. He also served as a lecturer in conservation science at the Cooperstown Graduate Program.

SEATTLE—The Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs has announced eight new members for the Seattle Arts Commission, reports Seattle Weekly. Five of them — Seattle Art Museum curator Sandra D. Jackson-Dumont; architect Debra Guenther; Cornish College of the Arts trustee Carol Munro; Stephanie Ellis-Smith, founder of the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas; and musician David Sabee — were appointed by Mayor Greg Nickels, in addition to the mayor's reappointment of sitting member Joaquin Herranz, a University of Washington professor. Three new commissioners — artist Diana Falchuk, Western Bridge art space director Eric Fredericksen, and attorney Jon Rosen — were appointed by the city council.

Seattle Weekly also reports that Misha Neininger has left after two years as executive director of 911 Media Arts Center, a nonprofit digital media arts organization. Neininger will not be replaced; rather her responsibilities will be assumed by the board and curators.

PARIS—Lorenzo Rudolf, former director of Art Basel and currently director of Shanghai's ShContemporary fair, is taking over international development for the international fair concern Luxrule. Rudolf managed Art Basel from 1991 to 2000 and the Frankfurt Book fair from 2000 to 2003, and has served as a consultant for Bologna Arte Fiera and the Palm Beach fairs. At Luxrule, which recently acquired artparis and artparis-AbuDhabi, he will develop projects on the global art scene and initiate new concepts linked to the globalization of the art market.

Farewells
LONG BEACH, Calif.—HMO pioneer, physician, art collector, and philanthropist Robert Gumbiner died of prostate cancer on January 20, the Los Angeles Times reports. Gumbiner, 85, built the pioneering managed-care giant FHP. He then used his fortune to found the Museum of Latin American Art, announcing the transformation of a Long Beach building he owned into the museum in 1995. The museum now has a thousand-piece collection that includes works from 20 countries. He also founded the Ethnic Art Institute of Micronesia in 1994 and was working on a museum in Long Beach dedicated to Pacific Island and Micronesian art that is scheduled to open this year.

PARIS—Dina Vierny, a model and muse for French sculptor Aristide Maillol and other artists, died on January 20 just before her 90th birthday, reports the Associated Press. Vierny was born in Chisinau, which is now the Moldovan capital and was then part of the Russian empire, and fled Stalinist Russia for France with her family in 1925. She became Maillol's model in 1935, collaborating with him until his death in 1944. She was also an active promoter of his work: In 1963, she gave France a collection of his monumental sculptures that now stand in the Tuileries Garden, and in 1995 she established a foundation to house his works, Musee Maillol. Vierny also modeled for and befriended Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy, and Pierre Bonnard. She ran an art gallery in Paris starting in 1947.

TOKYO—Influential Japanese graphic designer Shigeo Fukuda died of a stroke at the age of 76, reports the New York Times via Japan's Yomiuri Daily. Known for creating visual illusions and for using minimal, humor-infused graphics to communicate social and cultural messages, Fukuda was a major influence on American designers. He was the first Japanese designer inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, and his work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Japan Foundation in Toronto.