TAMPA MUSEUM OF ART TO BE RENAMED; PHOENIX ART MUSEUM’S NEWEST CURATOR

The Tampa Museum of Art will be renamed the Cornelia Corbett Center on its opening in fall 2009, reports the Tampa Bay Business Journal. Corbett was board chair at the museum from 2004 to 2007 and remains a trustee. In 2007, the board awarded her the Jeanne Rozier Winter Distinguished Award for her contributions to the museum. She and husband, Dick Corbett, recently increased their support of the museum to five million dollars, the largest individual contribution to the museum’s capital campaign. In April, the museum broke ground on a sixty-six-thousand-square-foot facility in downtown Tampa. Construction costs amount to $26.6 million, a combination of public and private funds.

In other news, the Arizona Republic reports that Sara Cochran has begun working as the new curator of modern and contemporary art at the Phoenix Art Museum, filling a post left vacant since Brady Roberts left in 2006. Cochran arrived at PAM from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she was assistant curator. Before that, she held posts at the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Her experience also includes a doctorate from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and five years of postgraduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris. “Sara’s skills and experience will keep the museum’s strong momentum with modern and contemporary art moving forward,” Phoenix Art Museum director Jim Ballinger says. “Her ideas for major national and international exhibitions will continue to grow our reputation, and her eye for recent art will enable us to continue building a special collection for the people of Arizona.”