Just two weeks after the Philadelphia Art Museum abruptly dismissed its director and chief executive, Sasha Suda — prompting her to file a lawsuit — the museum on Friday named her replacement: Daniel H. Weiss, the former president and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Dan’s proven track record of museum leadership, his deep understanding of the field and his ability to navigate complex institutional challenges,” Ellen Caplan, the board chairwoman, said in a statement, “make him ideally suited to provide stability and strategic direction during this critical period for the art museum.”
Mr. Weiss, who will start on Dec. 1, has agreed to stay in the position through at least 2028, “providing stability for staff, stakeholders and the community,” the museum said in a news release.
Mr. Weiss, 68, had been serving as a consultant to the museum over the last two years, he said in a telephone interview, “providing some advice to them on governance.”
During Ms. Suda’s tenure, “they reached out to me at a certain point and asked me if I would be interested in coming in to take over as director,” Mr. Weiss said in a telephone interview. “It wasn’t my life plan to do that. But I love this museum. I have a long history in Philadelphia.”
“I think it’s one of the great museums and cultural institutions in the country and in the world, and they needed help,” he said. “I thought, if I can bring value, I would consider it an honor to do so.”
Mr. Weiss will be taking over a 149-year-old museum reeling from controversy and in need of repair. In 2020, allegations surfaced that museum officials had failed to appropriately respond to complaints that one of its managers had made advances toward multiple female employees during his tenure.
In her lawsuit, Ms. Suda, 45 — who was three years into her five-year contract — asserted that she was dismissed after a “corrupt and unethical faction” of the museum’s board objected to her efforts at modernization. Filed in Pennsylvania state court, the lawsuit contends that she was fired “without a valid basis” after negotiations over the terms of her departure with the museum’s board of trustees had broken down.
On Friday, the museum filed its response, stating that the board’s executive committee “found that Suda misappropriated funds from the Museum and lied to cover up her theft.” The museum claimed that Ms. Suda had awarded herself raises on top of her $720,000 a year salary that the board’s compensation committee had rejected. The museum sought to move the dispute to arbitration instead of litigation.
“Suda has compounded this self-inflicted damage by filing a public complaint laden with false, dishonest, and irrelevant allegations in a baseless attempt to blame others for her misconduct,” the response continues. “Her purpose is obvious: she hopes that by publicizing false allegations against the Museum and its directors, officers, and employees, the Museum will be extorted into awarding her a severance she has no right to receive.”
Ms. Suda’s lawyer, Luke Nikas, of the firm Quinn Emanuel, said in a statement: “The motion, as well as its false narrative, fits the Philadelphia Museum’s longstanding pattern of trying to cover up its misconduct and mistreatment of staff. We expected the Museum would prefer to hide the sordid details about its unlawful treatment of Sasha Suda in a confidential arbitration. If the Museum had nothing to hide, it would not be afraid to litigate in state court where we filed the case.”
As for allegations of theft, Mr. Nikas said: “The Museum’s accusations are false. These are the same recycled allegations from the sham investigation that the Museum manufactured as a pretext for Suda’s wrongful termination.”
A spokeswoman for the museum said it had no further comment.
Mr. Weiss arrived at the Met in 2015, during a similar period of turmoil, and proved a stabilizing force. He left in 2023, after five years of sharing the leadership with Max Hollein, who was appointed director in 2018. In 2022, Mr. Hollein added the title of chief executive, eliminating the two-prong structure.
Before the Met, Mr. Weiss served as president of Haverford College, from 2013 to 2015, and of Lafayette College, from 2005 to 2013.
He has spent the last two years as a humanities professor and senior adviser to the provost for the arts at Johns Hopkins University, where he received his Ph.D. and served as chair of the art history department and dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences from 2002 to 2005.
The Philadelphia Art Museum is among the largest art museums in the United States, with a collection of more than 240,000 objects; it has 700,000 annual visitors.
“The museum has been through some challenges,” Mr. Weiss said.
Despite that, he added, he is not wary of taking the helm. The museum “has an extraordinary collection,” he said. “It has a very powerful, positive legacy. It has a great presentation, physical plant, location — all of that in a very strong city that believes in it. And what needs fixing can be fixed.”
Robin Pogrebin, who has been a reporter for The Times for 30 years, covers arts and culture.
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