One of the world’s most prestigious jewel-box museums has appointed a new director, and the search committee found her close at hand.
The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., will be led by its current deputy director and chief curator, Esther Bell, as of July 1. She joined the Berkshires museum, famed for its deep collection of European and American art, in 2017. She will be the museum’s first female director.
“It’s my dream job,” Bell said in an interview. Before working at the Clark, she was a curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Denise Littlefield Sobel, the chair of the museum’s board of trustees, said that it was a vote of confidence in the Clark’s current condition.
“We did not want a change agent,” Sobel said. “Things are going well.”
Bell will succeed Olivier Meslay, who announced his departure last year and will have been in the job for 10 years.
Meslay said that Bell is “a real scholar,” adding, “She takes her analysis a little further. She’s always a step beyond.”
Bell has been involved in some of the museum’s biggest projects, including helping to select and bring aboard a gift of 331 artworks and $45 million from the collector Aso O. Tavitian. A significant portion of that money is going toward building a new wing to house the art, scheduled to be completed in 2028.
Tavitian died in 2020, and his foundation’s gift, with works dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries, includes those by Jan van Eyck, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Hans Memling and Jean-Antoine Watteau. The donation gives the Clark pieces by more than 100 artists who were not previously represented in the collection, and beefs up its holding of sculptures significantly.
Bell is cocurating a preview exhibition of the trove that opens in June, titled “An Exquisite Eye: Introducing the Aso O. Tavitian Collection.”
As for being the first woman to lead the Clark, Bell said that she did not want to emphasize that fact — but she did note that the institution, which opened in 1955, was established by two collectors, the married couple Sterling and Francine Clark.
As for Francine, Bell said, “I’m sure she would be delighted.”
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