With all the talk about outsized salaries for alpha male museum directors, let’s highlight a different issue: unequal pay for women. I’m talking specifically about the woman who since 1982 has ably directed the Philadelphia Museum, Anne d’Harnoncourt (above).
The on P. 13 of the current issue of The Art Newspaper, you can find the results of their 2006 international survey of compensation for museum directors. I’ve previously noted that I’m uneasy about posting museum officials’ salaries (unless there’s good reason), and I’m not going to post Anne’s.
Suffice it to say that her compensation appears to be the lowest in her peer group of directors of the country’s preeminent art museums—not to mention directors with such a long and distinguished track record. True, her husband Joseph Rishel is on the museum’s payroll too, as senior curator of European painting. But that’s besides the point.
UPDATE: I think I’ve started a “Give Anne d’Harnoncourt a Raise!” movement: here and here.
By the way, Tyler, AAMD’s 2007 salary survey doesn’t have to be “leaked.” It can be ordered here. Wanna split the $75 cost for non-members?