George Shackelford at entrance to Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ “Art of Europe” galleries
The official announcement is not scheduled until Monday. But the word has gotten out that George T.M. Shackelford, chair of the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s European art department and its senior curator of modern art, will become senior deputy director of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, where he will play an important role in planning for the museum’s expansion into its planned Renzo Piano-designed addition, expected to open in 2013.
Speaking of which, I asked the Kimbell for a status report on the addition’s construction (which began in October) and for up-to-date drawings and renderings, but I was told that these won’t be available until the fall.
Here‘s the Kimbell’s press release (dated July 11), which is not on the museum’s website at this writing.
George’s Boston swan song is likely to be a scholarly crowd-pleaser—Degas and the Nude, co-organized with the Musée d’Orsay, opening in Boston on Oct. 9. He will assume his position at the Kimbell early next year.
As you may remember from the CultureGrrl post about my December visit to the BMFA, the museum had then just begun what was intended to be a comprehensive rethinking and reinstallation of its European art holdings. In my companion CultureGrrl Video for that post, Shackelford walked us through that project’s “starter gallery”—the space just off the new Norman Foster-designed atrium devoted to 18th-century European decorative arts, sculpture and furniture (with some paintings). No word yet from Boston on who will see that project through or how this change in supervision might affect it.