The Dallas Museum of Art’s Eugene McDermott director, Bonnie Pitman, has announced that she will step down from the position in May 2011, citing health reasons for her resignation. Olivier Meslay, who joined the museum 2009 from the Louvre and currently holds the joint position of Senior Curator of European and American Art and the Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art, will step in as interim director. The release announcing Pitman’s departure also states that she will continue to work on special projects with the museum through April 2012 and will participate in the search for a new director.

Since taking the position as the DMA’s chief, Pitman has made a name for herself in the museum world for her extensive research into museum audiences and the institution’s role in expanding the breadth and scope of the museum’s appeal, a topic upon which she has lectured extensively, including at many of the nation’s top institutions. Earlier in 2011, Pitman released a book on the topic. The museum also expanded its collections under Pitman, focusing particularly on its role as an encyclopedic museum, acquiring works of ancient American art, South Asian art, Indonesian tribal arts, and American 19th- and 20th-century silver and furniture, among other acquisitions.
In 2010, we profiled Pitman in D Magazine. You can read that article here.

Here is the full release:

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It started yesterday: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art began gathering “players” to create a lineup of museums in support of the San Francisco Giants, posting updates, rally calls, cheers, and jibes on a new Twitter feed. Now, the Kimbell Museum has responded to the call, gathering Dallas-Fort Worth museums to create a lineup of institutions standing strong in support of your Texas Rangers. You can follow action on the new #MuseumRangers feed. What this all means, I have no idea, but in a bold show of intimidation, the Kimbell linked to Michelangelo Buonarroti’s painting, “The Torment of St. Anthony,” warning, perhaps, that St. Francis By the Bay could be in store for a similar fate.

It has been nearly a year since the grand festivities that opened the AT&T Performing Arts Center. Since then, the center has experienced a number of highlights, and the year has also raised a number of questions. Many of these involve the PAC’s administration and finances, including CEO Mark Nerenhausen’s abrupt departure and financial shortfalls, some anticipated and others not. Later this month, the board of the AT&T Performing Arts Center, led by its new chairman, Roger Nanney, will go into ..read more

The Vice President of External Affairs at the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Jill Magnuson, has left the organization to become the Director of External Affairs at the Nasher Sculpture Center, the sculpture museum announced yesterday. Magnuson’s switch is the latest in a series of personnel changes at the Performing Arts Center, which began with the resignation of CEO Mark Nerenhausen earlier this year. A full release is after the jump.

Jill Magnuson Named Director of External Affairs for Dallas’ Nasher Sculpture ..read more

If we’ve learned anything in the year since the AT&T Performing Arts Center opened, it is that the center shines brightest when it serves as the host of multi-disciplinary festivals and events. In other words, it will be vacant, quiet, and lonely unless you program it to death (or life, as it were). That’s why Art In October is such a fantastic idea: it is an annual excuse to play Sorcerer’s Apprentice to the Arts District’s many parks and plazas, nooks and crannies. The month-long festival kicks off this weekend with a day-long opening celebration, featuring free admission to museums, a pay-what-you-can performance of the Dallas Theater Center’s Henry IV, outdoor performances, tours, and various other activities. There’s a lot more information here, and you can download a full calendar here.

I arrived at the preview of the Kimbell’s new exhibition, Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea, a few minutes early and wandered through the show’s four galleries without looking at the accompanying wall essays, cue cards, or catalogue scholarship. Moving through the neatly arranged collection of artifacts, I was struck by their strange incomprehensibility. I saw small animal figurines with human heads sticking out; exquisitely painted pottery with ornate scenes depicting moments in very unknown stories; plates decorated ..read more

The Museum of Nature and Science hosted an open house today to show off the progress of their new facility that will be located on Broom St. adjacent the Woodall Rodgers Freeway and announce that they have raised $135 million of the total $185 million needed to fully pay for the new facility.

The open house took place in the temporary visitors’ center, which houses a 3D model of the new building as well as details about planned exhibition spaces. A public open house will be held August 28, from 1 to 3 p.m.

The architecture and engineering of the building is ambitious. The site will include underground exhibit halls, sloping roof gardens, and a sophisticated rain capture system that will provide water for site irrigation and toilets. During the presentation, Walt Zartmen, Senior Vice President of Devleopment for Hillwood Development, who is assisting with the construction of the facility, said that the timing of the construction has been fortuitous. Given the state of the construction industry, they have been able to acquire materials cheaply and construction talent has been plentiful, he said.

It’s a simple thing, really. The Amon Carter Museum has always been a museum that focused on American Art, so why not add that descriptor to the name? Today the museum announced that its official name will be The Amon Carter Museum of American Art. From Director Ron Tyler:

“Our new name doesn’t signify a shift in mission, but rather a clarification of what we’ve offered since the mid-1960s,” Tyler says. “The name change is a way to better communicate ..read more

Is there a better time to be a woman? Nowadays, ladies are doing all sorts of things that were traditionally left to the menfolk. We’re running for president and losing. We’re attempting to take away a woman’s right to choose. And we’re in space so often that no one even bothers to learn the names of female astronauts—just like their male counterparts. That’s equality! And nowhere is the celebration of how far we’ve come more evident than at the gift shop at the Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future.

At what is possibly the most politically incorrect gift shop on record—a new record, go for it ladies!—you can celebrate your PhD with the purchase of a red straw cowboy hat adorned with a rhinestone tiara spelling out your alma mater. We all know an annoying girly girl; why not surprise her with a pink “High Maintenance” sign? Or, if she tips a few too many, how about a wooden “Wine Chick” plaque? And for the ball-breaker in your life, we’re thinking napkins. The Women’s Museum features napkins with an array of empowering messages, such as S.L.U.T.S. (Southern Ladies Up to Something) and B.R.A.T. (Beautiful, Rich, and Thin). On our last visit, it was just so gratifying to see a local Girl Scout troop getting inspired by these towelettes. It’s never too early for girl power!

So the next time you want to celebrate just how great it is to be a woman, Dallas has just the answer. Susan B. Anthony once said, “Failure is impossible.” Boring! Thank God she didn’t go into snappy napkin writing.

Photos: Laura Kostelny