JACK BECKER NAMED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF JOSLYN ART MUSEUM
- OMAHA, Nebraska
- /
- February 01, 2010
Jim Young, chairman of Joslyn Art Museum’s board of governors, has announced that Jack F. Becker, Ph.D. (pictured), has accepted the position as executive director of Joslyn Art Museum.
Dr. Becker, 46, comes to Joslyn from Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennessee, where he has served as president and chief executive officer since 2005. He joined Cheekwood in 2002 as vice president/director of its art museum. Prior to that, Dr. Becker worked as curator of the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, the center of America's best known Impressionist art colony; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. He also held fellowships from the National Gallery of Art, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution.
At Cheekwood, Dr. Becker oversaw the operations of an accredited art museum with about 10,000 square feet of gallery space housing nearly 8,000 objects with strengths in American art, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Cheekwood’s botanical garden features outdoor sculpture and important botanical collections situated in the estate’s 10 distinct gardens.
During his five years as head of Cheekwood, Dr. Becker championed the financial strengthening and enhanced branding of the institution, implementing new marketing strategies to increase attendance and growing contributed income. Under his leadership, Cheekwood increased major donor memberships, completed a $2.7 million restoration
Contact:
Amy Rummel, Communications ManagerJoslyn Art Museum
(402) 661-3822
arummel@joslyn.org
2200 Dodge St.
Omaha, Nebraska
About Joslyn Art Museum
Joslyn Art Museum is a major regional resource for the collection, preservation, and interpretation of the visual arts. Dedicated to excellence and celebrating art in all its variety, the Museum maintains a collection of art historical significance, ranging from antiquity to the present, with special emphasis on 19th- and 20th-century European and American art. Through its collection, exhibitions, and education programs, Joslyn Art Museum seeks to foster appreciation and enjoyment of art for the benefit of a diverse audience. The Museum was a gift to the people of Omaha from Sarah Joslyn in memory of her husband, George, who made his fortune as president of the Western Newspaper Union. The Museum’s original 1931 building is one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in the nation, with 38 types of marble from seven countries. The Walter and Suzanne Scott Pavilion, a 58,000-square-foot addition built in 1994, was designed by renowned British architect Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, as his first U.S. commission. The Museum features galleries, a 1,000–seat concert hall, fountain court, education technology gallery, lecture hall, classrooms, library, café, and shop.
