Katharine Lee Reid

Katharine Lee Reid (born 1941 or 1942)[1] is an American art historian and former art museum director. Reid has served as the director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the deputy director of the Art Institute of Chicago, among curatorial positions at the Ackland Art Museum, the Smart Museum of Art and the Toledo Museum of Art. Her expertise as an art historian includes European paintings and American and European decorative arts.

Biography

Reid is the daughter of Sherman Lee, an art historian who had expertise in Asian art and served as the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1958 to 1983.[1][2] During her childhood, her interest in art grew when her father would bring home photographs of artwork from art dealers and ask her what she would buy if she were director.[3] She studied at the Laurel School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and then at Vassar College and Harvard University. After receiving a Fulbright Scholarship in 1963, she studied overseas at the Institut d'art et d'archéologie in the Sorbonne. She then studied museum curatorship at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1966.[1][4]

From 1982 to 1991, Reid served as the assistant director and the deputy director of the Art Institute of Chicago, and then as the director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) from 1991 to 2000.[1] As director of the VMFA, Reid led the museum through the early 1990s recession, increasing attendance and expanding its outreach programs specifically directed towards the African-American community of Richmond despite severe budget cuts. Furthermore, she initiated a $110-million expansion and renovation of the museum and helped found an organization named Museums on the Boulevard (MOB). The purpose of MOB was to coordinate programs among the cultural institutions of the Fan district of Richmond, Virginia. In her tenure the museum opened installations exhibiting Fabergé and ancient Egyptian art.[3] Prior to the VMFA she was a curator at the Ackland Art Museum, the Smart Museum of Art and the Toledo Museum of Art.[1]

On March 13, 2000, she succeeded Robert Bergman as the sixth director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. In her time as director, the museum broke ground for a renovation and expansion designed by Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly, as well as the creation of a separate department of African art in 2001.[5][6] The museums notable acquisitions under her tenure included works by Salvador Dalí, Fitz Hugh Lane, Lee Krasner, Augusta Savage and Frank Stella.[7] She retired in 2005 in order to spend time with her family. Timothy Rub succeeded her as director in 2006.[8]

Reid received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Government of France and was awarded honorary degrees by Knox College and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also served on the advisory boards of the Ackland Art Museum and the Nasher Museum of Art.[9]

References
  1. Dobrzynski, Judith H. (January 5, 2000). "Museum Chief in Cleveland". The New York Times. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  2. Woo, Elaine (July 20, 2008). "Cleveland art museum director gave it prestige". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  3. Litt, Steven (March 2000). "The Lee dynasty". ARTnews. Vol. 99 no. 3. p. 58.
  4. "Katharine Lee Reid New Director at Cleveland Museum of Art". Traditional Fine Arts Organization. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  5. Barnard, Tom (October 5, 2012). "Museum History". Cleveland Museum of Art. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  6. Petridis, Constantine (March 2011). "New Acquisitions of African Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art". African Arts. 44 (1): 66. doi:10.1162/afar.2011.44.1.52. S2CID 57562303.
  7. "Katharine Lee Reid To Resign as Director of Museum". artdaily.cc. February 3, 2005. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  8. Cascone, Sarah (May 20, 2014). "Griswold Will Direct Cleveland Museum of Art". Artnet News. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  9. "Katharine Lee Reid - Doctor of Fine Arts" (PDF). UNC-Chapel Hill Office of Faculty Governance. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
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