STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.—The Norman Rockwell Museum has named Charles Urquhart associate director for museum advancement, a position that he began on Sept. 9, ArtDaily reports. Urquhart, who has extensive fund-raising experience, will head up development at the museum. He comes most recently from Women in Need, a group that provides shelter to women and children, and Jeanne Sigler & Associates in New York, where he participated in the Interim Solutions program, holding senior positions during the transitional periods at two of Columbia University’s nonprofits. Urquhart joins the Norman Rockwell as it works toward a goal of raising $25 million to fund community programs and special initiatives at the museum.

JERSEY CITY, N.J.—The Jersey City Museum has announced that Laurene Buckley will succeed Marion Grzesiak as executive director, ArtDaily reports. Grzesiak left the museum in April. Buckley began her career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has since worked continuously in the field, at a number of museums, including the Queens Museum of Art, the Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University, and the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester. She also has experience as a teacher and a peer reviewer for the American Association of Museums. She assumes her post on October 1.

NEW YORK—The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced the appointment of four senior staff members, two of whom will take over their new posts immediately. Carrie Rebora Barratt, who has worked as a curator at the Met since 1984, has been named associate director for collections and administration; Keith Christiansen, an employee of the museum for over 30 years, will assume the title of John Pope-Hennessy chairman of European paintings. On October 26, the two will be joined by Sheila R. Canby and Peggy Fogelman. Canby, currently curator of Islamic art and antiquities at the British Museum in London, will become the Met’s Patti Cadby Birch curator, overseeing the museum’s Department of Islamic Art. Fogelman will join the Met as Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose chairman of education, exiting her post as director of education and interpretation at Massachusetts’s Peabody Essex Museum.

INDIANAPOLIS—J. Nicholas Cameron will step in as chief operating officer of the Indianapolis Museum of Art starting on January 4. Cameron comes to Indianapolis from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he most recently served as vice president for construction. He holds degrees from the University of Connecticut and Vanderbilt University, and held positions at the Met for 30 years.

ST. LOUIS—St. Louis Post-Dispatch art critic David Bonetti will retire from his post, effective immediately. Bonetti will leave not only the newspaper but the city itself to return to his native New England. In an unusual farewell to his St. Louis readers, Bonetti claimed he would return to his home state of Massachusetts for “the salt air, the good seafood, and people who care more about where you got your Ph.D. than where you went to high school.” He has not announced what's next for him professionally. The Dispatch, however, has announced that Bonetti will not be replaced.

CINCINNATTI—Deborah Emont Scott will join the Taft Museum of Art as its director and chief executive officer on November 9, reports the Cincinnatti Enquirer. Scott comes to the museum from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, where she served as chief curator, and before that, Sanders Sosland curator of 20th-century art. She holds degrees in art history from Rutgers University and Oberlin College, and has spent the better part of her career at the Nelson-Atkins.

SAN DIEGO—The San Diego Museum of Art has elected to appoint not one but four interim directors to oversee museum operations while it searches for a replacement for Derrick Cartwright, who will step down as director this week. According to San Diego’s Union-Tribune, the interim team will consist of the museum’s four deputy directors, Julia Marciari-Alexander, Julianne Markow, Katy McDonald, and Vasundhara Prabhu, all of whom were hired under Cartwright. The museum has tapped New York search firm Phillips Oppenheim to help find Cartwright’s permanent successor.

Farewells
LONDON—Painter and sculptor John Edwards died on August 22, the Guardian reports. He was 71. Edwards was known for his always contemporary abstract work, which tended to reflect the visual tastes characteristic of the years of their creation. Edwards also spent many years working as a teacher, in England, the United States, and France. After retiring from teaching he remained a prolific artist, showing often in cities around the world. In the last years of his life, he spent much time in India, where he continued to produce work and receive critical praise. He work is included in the collections of the British Council, the Contemporary Art Society in London, the Power Institute of Fine Arts in Sydney, and the Guggenheim Museum, among others.

PARIS—Graphic artist Gregory Masurovsky passed away on July 17 at the age of 79, his son Marc told ARTINFO this week. After studying at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and the Art Students League in New York in his younger years, Masurovsky quickly established himself as a graphic artist; his drawings and etchings were exhibited throughout Europe and the United States from 1956 to the year of his death. Most recently, the New York–based Krasner-Pollock Foundation awarded him two grants to produce two books on his work, which he wrote and illustrated. His artworks are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Fogg Art Museum in Boston, and the Musée national d’art moderne in Paris, among others.

NEW YORK—Paul Shanley, the longtime publisher of Art in America, died on September 2 at age 83, Artnet reports. Shanley oversaw Art in America during its critical years in the 1970s and ‘80s, including establishing its “Annual Guide” issue, which served as a directory to museums and art galleries. He later went on to publish Arts Magazine until its closing. He was a fixture in the art-world social scene, and most recently launched the International Guide to Art Fairs and Antiques Shows with two of his four daughters (one of whom, Kate Shanley, also works for Louise Blouin Media).

TEL AVIV—Israeli sculptor and video artist Buky Schwartz has died at the age of 77, reports the Haaretz Daily Newspaper. He was considered one of the leaders of video arts in Israel and is credited with helping to establish the importance of the medium in the country. Born in Jerusalem, Schwartz studied at the Avni Institute in Tel Aviv and St. Martin’s College of Art in London. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s he held many one-man shows, helped to found the 10+ Group with a number of fellow artists, and also sculpted for the theater before turning to video in 1977. After spending time working in New York, he returned to his native Israel, where he created some of his best-known works, including 1991’s "Tel Aviv-New York" and “Pinball Machine,” also in Tel Aviv.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa—Artist Alexander Podlashuc died from liver cancer on Sept. 5, the Weekend Post reports. He was 79. Podlashuc dedicated his life to art and education, training as a teenager at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town and later at the Central School of Art in London. He went on to teach at the School of Art and Design in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and eventually went back to school in his later years to gain a master's degree in technology. Artistically, Podlashuc may be best known for his collaborations with his wife Marianne; together they became a well-known artistic duo and were founding members of the Bloemfontein Group.

PHILADELPHIA—Sculptor Robinson Fredenthal has died at age 69, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. His death on Aug. 31 was a result of complications from Parkinson’s disease, which he developed at age 24 and which greatly informed much of his artwork. While studying architecture, Fredenthal found that his sickness made it difficult to draw, and he soon turned to sculpture. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, Fredenthal’s large-scale sculptures were installed at various public locations around Philadelphia and at the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his bachelor of arts and architecture degrees. As recently as 2007, his work was displayed for the public at the Philadelphia International Airport.