GLENN CASTELLANO
The New-York Historical Society announced today that it has named curator Margaret K. Hofer the foundation’s vice president and the director of its museum. Hofer takes the reins at the museum from Brian Allen, who began his term as director last year.
Hofer, who has been a curator at the New-York Historical Society’s museum since 1993, is best known for her scholarship on women in lesser-known pockets of New York history. In 2007, she co-curated “A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls,” a show about the women who cut glass for Tiffany Studios’ famed lamps, windows, mosaics, and enamels. That exhibition was a smash hit and continued to tour the world through 2012. During her time at the museum, she also organized the New-York Historical Society’s Tiffany galleries and other permanent collection reinstallations.
“It has been an adventure working with one of finest holdings of decorative arts and historical artifacts in the United States, including a stellar collection of early American silver and the largest collection of Tiffany lamps in the world, not to mention a superb staff, president, and board,” Hofer said in a statement to the press. “I look forward to collaborating with this team to guide our exhibitions program, invigorate our collecting, and create initiatives that bring our collections to broader audiences.”