DIRECTORIAL CHANGES AT COLORADO SPRINGS ARTS CENTER AND VICTORIA ART GALLERY
According to Kyle MacMillan in the Denver Post, Sam Gappmayer—executive director of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum, Idaho, since 2002—will helm the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the museum announced today. He is expected to begin his duties in October. He replaces Michael De Marsche, whose controversial four-year tenure ended with the announcement of his resignation days after the museum opened a thirty-million-dollar addition in August 2007. “Sam Gappmayer has a significant history of achievement in taking the arts organizations he has served to higher ground,” Jon Stepleton, chairman of the arts center’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “And he has done so in a highly collaborative way, with great integrity, openness, and sense of community connection.” Prior to his tenure at the Sun Valley Center, Gappmayer’s experience includes heading the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Fresno Art Museum, and Salt Lake Art Center.
In other news, Shirley Madill is resigning as director of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, to take over the helm at a small gallery in Saint Catharines, Ontario, reports Grania Litwin in the Victoria Times Colonist_. “I’ve had an offer to become director of Rodman Hall Arts Center, which is associated with Brock University,” announced Madill yesterday, after news of her resignation was leaked last week. “It’s a great offer, for many reasons. For one, I will be close to my daughter, who is studying at Concordia in Montreal.” Financially, she said the move is positive, and she looks forward to playing a big role at Brock, “expanding the cultural center, looking at public art projects, creating a larger gallery presence in the city, and getting involved in curatorial training. It’s a small-scale organization, with a broader base.” Rodman has a permanent collection of about 850 artworks; by comparison, the Victoria gallery has over seventeen thousand works. Before arriving at her current post less than two years ago, Madill was vice president of the Art Gallery of Hamilton and oversaw its eighteen-million-dollar renovation.
