Following yesterday’s news that Salvador Salort-Pons had been appointed director, president, and CEO of Detroit Institute of Arts, we learned today from MSU Today that DIA’s former director, Graham Beal, has been named Visiting Hannah Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University for the 2015–16 academic year. This appointment, the article notes, is the university’s most prestigious.
Beal will also serve as senior adviser to the provost in the department of art, art history, and design in the College of Arts and Letters. Additionally, Beal will work to facilitate collaborations between the university and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum on campus. He will also be involved in the selection of the Broad Museum’s new director.
Beal, who is originally from the United Kingdom, became director of the DIA in 1999 and remained in the position up until his resignation this past June. Previously, Beal had directed the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art as well as Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum, and worked as chief curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.