WELLESLEY LOSES A LéGER; NEW DIRECTOR FOR MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

Geoff Edgers reports in the Boston Globe that a prized 1921 painting by the French Cubist Fernand Léger has been lost—and perhaps unintentionally thrown out—by Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and Cultural Center. That would be a costly mistake. Last year, the average Léger painting sold for $2.8 million. Woman and Child is part of an important series by Léger that applied jagged, geometric strokes to a familial theme. “It’s very upsetting that it’s gone,” said Wellesley art historian Patricia Gray Berman, who brought her students to look at the Léger every semester. “It’s a great painting, and I hope it comes home.” A crate believed to contain the Léger sat in the museum’s fifth-floor galleries through last fall, when it was moved to a vault elsewhere in the building. In November, museum administrators discovered the painting was missing when they were compiling a digital catalogue and sought to include information about the Léger.

In other news, the board of trustees of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art announced yesterday the appointment of Cameron Kitchin as the director of the museum. Kitchin is currently executive director of the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia. He succeeds Kaywin Feldman, who left the Brooks to become director and president of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in January of this year. At the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Kitchin was responsible for the museum’s planning, physical expansion, artistic and programmatic vision, and increased visibility for exhibitions and studio school programs. Kitchin will begin his position on November 1 and will replace interim director Al Lyons.