COURTESY ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
The Art Institute of Chicago announced today that Martha Tedeschi, its deputy director of art and research, will leave her position at the museum in July. She’ll be going to the Harvard Art Museums, where she will become the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director.
Tedeschi has been at the Art Institute of Chicago for three decades and has occupied various positions at the museum in her tenure there. In 1999, she became a curator at the Art Institute, and, in 2012, she was appointed to her current position. Over the past four years, Tedeschi has acted as the museum’s academic liaison and overseen the digitization of the collection. She has also been supervising 225 of the museum’s staff members, in eleven curatorial departments.
In addition to her role as deputy director, Tedeschi has curated shows of work by John Marin and Winslow Homer at the Art Institute, and has edited a catalogue raisonné of James McNeill Whistler’s lithographs.
The director position at the Harvard Art Museums has been vacant since July 2015, when Thomas W. Lentz stepped down. Lentz’s time at the museums saw their grand reopening, in 2014, when a new expansion designed by Renzo Piano was unveiled to the public. As director of the Harvard Art Museums, Tedeschi will be overseeing a collection that includes some 250,000 works of art.
“It is a tremendous privilege to be chosen to lead the Harvard Art Museums at this exciting moment in their history,” Tedeschi said in a statement. “As I assume my new post, I will carry with me the lessons and opportunities afforded me during my long career at the Art Institute, for which I am deeply grateful. I have had the privilege of working with very gifted directors, including Douglas Druick, my longtime mentor, and now James Rondeau, a cherished colleague. I will miss the Art Institute family more than I can say, but I have the satisfaction of knowing that I leave the museum in excellent hands and with a brilliant plan for the future.”