DON STAHL
After more than 14 years in her current position, Jenny Dixon, the director of the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York, will retire. She plans to leave her post at the end of this year, when a new director will take over the museum founded by midcentury-modernist sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi to show his own work.
Dixon joined the institution as director in 2003. She oversaw renovation of the museum and its accompanying outdoor sculpture garden, and managed its year-round exhibitions program. During her tenure, she secured a permanent charter from the state of New York and accreditation from the Alliance of American Museums, marking a transformation from a private foundation to a museum.
Over the course of her career, Dixon was also the director of the Public Art Fund, the executive director of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the executive director of the Bronx Museum of the Arts. She has also taught courses at the Parsons School of Design, New York University, and Cooper Union.
“It has been my extraordinary good fortune to lead the Noguchi Museum for the past 14 years,” Dixon said in a statement. “It is an amazing place, and my years here have been among the most gratifying of my career, a capstone to some 40 years of active engagement in New York City’s cultural life and a transition to the next phase of my life and work.”
The Noguchi Museum’s board of trustees is now forming a search committee for a new director.