Ned Rifkin
A year after his resignation from the top art spot at the Smithsonian Institution, Ned Rifkin has been named director of the Blanton Museum of the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to his departure from his federal post as undersecretary of art, he oversaw a major report by a panel of distinguished art museum officials. The report’s findings were particularly (and to my mind, unfairly) critical of the direction of the Smithsonian American Art Museum under Elizabeth Broun‘s leadership. She survived that challenge and still occupies her post.
Rifkin, a former director of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington and the High Museum in Atlanta, began his career in Texas as an assistant professor in the University of Texas at Arlington and later returned to Texas as director of the Menil Collection, Houston. The Blanton holds several distinguished collections, including the Suida-Manning Collection of Renaissance and Baroque art, acquired in 1998, and an encyclopedic assemblage of 3,200 prints that were donated by art historian Leo Steinberg in 2002. Rifkin is best know for his involvement with contemporary art.
He succeeds Jessie Otto Hite (who retired from the Blanton’s directorship more than a year ago) and will also be a professor of art an art history at the university.
You can read the university’s announcement of Rifkin’s appointment here.