I am pleased to share with you news of my selection as a 2009 fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL). CCL, founded on the conviction that curatorial knowledge and expertise are fundamental to art museum leadership, exists to recognize curatorial excellence and to train selected curators for future leadership positions. Cofounded by Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, and Elizabeth Easton, former chair of the Department of European Painting at the Brooklyn Museum, CCL welcomed its inaugural class of ten fellows in 2008. I am honored to be included in its second class with esteemed curatorial colleagues from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and other American Association of Museums-accredited institutions.

The CCL Class of 2009 was selected by a panel of leading museum directors. My inclusion is an honor for the Frye, as well as for me, since it recognizes my curatorial work since 2004 when Frye Director Midge Bowman hired me as the Frye’s chief curator and director of exhibitions and collections. In this role I was charged with a dual mandate: to revitalize the Museum’s Founding Collection of nineteenth-century German art and to increase its commitment to contemporary art. I thank Midge for her enthusiastic support of my application to and participation in the CCL fellowship.

In addition to recognizing current distinction in one’s area of expertise, the fellowship also prepares curators to maximize their potential contribution to the museum field. CCL’s curriculum includes readings, direct teaching, site visits, individual practice, and team projects. Seminars are taught by professors of the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, in non-profit management, fund-raising, board development, planning, cultural properties law, and other pertinent subjects. CCL fellows also join in executive leadership colloquia with museum directors, trustees, and curators, to discuss issues currently facing the museum world.

Mentoring by museum directors is central to the program; in consultation with CCL director Elizabeth Easton, fellows are assigned a six-month mentorship with a museum director of distinction and a one-week residency at a major museum.

I look forward to working with my CCL mentor, Thomas Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot director, Harvard Art Museum (HAM), Cambridge. The Busch-Reisinger Museum, one of HAM’s facilities, is connected to the Frye in its focus on art from German-speaking Europe and in its history. I also look forward to spending a week in Houston with my residency host Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection. The Menil shares several parallels with the Frye Art Museum: guided by the wills of its founders, John and Dominique de Menil, whose private collection forms the core of its collections, the Menil is foundation-run, free of charge to all visitors, and takes seriously the civic responsibility that comes with this mandate.

I look forward to updating you as the work progresses; I am also eager to share how this experience informs my ongoing work with the Frye.

Robin Held
Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2009 edition of the FRYE members’ magazine.

Robin Held, front row left, with 2009 CCL fellows. Photo: Ace Photography. Jan. 2009.