Ian Wardropper

Last updated
Ian Wardropper
BornMay 11, 1951
Baltimore, Maryland
NationalityAmerican
Education
Occupation Art curator
Employer Frick Collection
TitleDirector

Ian Bruce Wardropper (born 1951) is an American art historian and curator, recognized for his expertise in European sculpture, decorative arts, and Old Master paintings. [1] He has served as the director of the Frick Collection in New York City since 2011. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Wardropper was born on May 11, 1951, in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was raised. [3] Wardropper received his Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in 1973, concentrating in art. He then pursued graduate studies at New York University, where he earned a Master of Arts in 1976 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1985. [4]

Career

Wardropper began his curatorial career at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he served as Assistant Curator of European Sculpture from 1982 to 1985. He was then associate curator of European decorative arts and sculpture, a role he held until 1989. From 1989 to 2001, he served as the Eloise W. Martin Curator of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture, and Classical Art at the Art Institute. [5]

In 2001, Wardropper joined The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Curator in Charge of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. He was promoted to chairman of the department in 2005, a position he held until his departure in 2011.

In 2013 Wardropper was invested with the Order of Arts and Letters from France in a ceremony held at the Art Institute of Chicago, for recognition of his contributions to the appreciation of European art; especially his role in advancing French culture through curated exhibitions and fostering partnerships with major museums across the United States. [6]

The Frick Collection

In 2011, Wardropper was appointed director of the Frick Collection, where he has overseen significant exhibitions, publications, and acquisitions, as well as the major renovation, [7] and expansion project known as "Frick Madison." [8]

Under his leadership, the Frick Collection expanded its international activities, securing loans and lending works to exhibitions around the world, and hosting numerous international symposiums themed around topics related to works in the collection. [9] [10]

The renovation and expansion of the Frick Collection's main building entailed creating new spaces for exhibitions, as well as dedicated spaces for educational and conservation initiatives, and was designed by the architecture firm Selldorf Architects. [11] [12]

Wardropper announced that he would be stepping down as director of the museum, in 2025. [13]

Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has commented on Wardropper's work at the Frick, stating that: “He opened up a dialogue with contemporary thinkers and cultural figures. The Frick could be perceived as a very static collection. I think Ian changed that.” [14]

Selected Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metropolitan Museum of Art</span> Art museum in New York City

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the fourth-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million visitors in 2023, it is the most-visited museum in the United States and the fifth-most visited art museum in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Modern Art</span> Art museum in Manhattan, New York City, U.S.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The institution was conceived in 1929 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Initially located in the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue, it opened just days after the Wall Street Crash. The museum, America's first devoted exclusively to modern art, was led by A. Conger Goodyear as president and Abby Rockefeller as treasurer, with Alfred H. Barr Jr. as its first director. Under Barr's leadership, the museum's collection rapidly expanded, beginning with an inaugural exhibition of works by European modernists. Despite financial challenges, including opposition from John D. Rockefeller Jr., the museum moved to several temporary locations in its early years, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. eventually donated the land for its permanent site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frick Collection</span> Art museum in New York City

The Frick Collection is an art museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. It was established in 1935 to preserve the art collection of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection consists of 14th- to 19th-century European paintings, as well as other pieces of European fine and decorative art. It is located at the Henry Clay Frick House, a Beaux-Arts mansion designed for Henry Clay Frick. The Frick also houses the Frick Art Research Library, an art history research center established by Frick's daughter Helen Clay Frick in 1920, which contains sales catalogs, books, periodicals, and photographs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Pope-Hennessy</span> British art historian

Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy, was a British art historian. Pope-Hennessy was director of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1967 and 1973, and director of the British Museum between 1974 and 1976. He was a scholar of Italian Renaissance art. Many of his writings, including the tripartite Introduction to Italian Sculpture, and his magnum opus, Donatello: Sculptor, are regarded as classics in the field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clark Art Institute</span> Art museum and research institute in US

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, commonly referred to as the Clark, is an art museum and research institution located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Its collection consists of European and American paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, and decorative arts from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century. The Clark, along with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA), forms a trio of art museums in the Berkshires. The institute also serves as a center for research and higher learning. It is home to various research and academic programs, which include the Fellowship Program and the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art, as well as one of the most distinguished research libraries in the country, with more than 295,000 volumes in over 72 languages. The Clark is visited by 200,000 people a year, and offers many educational programs for visitors of all ages throughout the year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bass Museum</span> Art museum in Florida, United States

The Bass Museum of Art is a contemporary art museum located in Miami Beach, Florida. The Bass Museum of Art was founded in 1963 and opened in 1964.

Thomas Patrick Campbell is the director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, overseeing the de Young and Legion of Honor museums. He served as the director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 2009 and 2017. On 30 June 2017, Campbell stepped down as director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art under pressure and accepted the Getty Foundation's Rothschild Fellowship for research and study at both the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and at Waddesdon Manor, in the UK.

Olga Raggio was an art historian and curator who worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art for over 60 years, and discovered the 'lost' bust of Cosimo I de' Medici by Bartolommeo Bandinelli.

Adam D. Weinberg is an art museum curator. He was the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art for 20 years, from October 1, 2003 to October 31, 2023.

Colin Barry Bailey is a British art historian and museum director. Bailey is currently the Director of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. He is a scholar of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French art, specifically on the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Joseph Henry Breck (1885–1933) was an American curator and museum director. During his career he served as a Director of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, Curator of the Decorative Arts Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Assistant Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and first Director of The Cloisters.

James Parker was an American art historian. He served for nearly three decades as a curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Hollein</span> Austrian art historian and business manager

Max Hollein is an Austrian art historian and the current CEO and Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He served as Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from July 2016, until April 2018, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that Hollein would become its 10th director.

Anne Litle Poulet is a retired American art historian. Poulet is an expert in the area of French art, particularly sculpture. In her career, she organized two major monographic exhibitions on the French sculptors Clodion and Jean-Antoine Houdon, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Met Breuer</span> Defunct art museum in New York City

The Met Breuer was a museum of modern and contemporary art at Madison Avenue and East 75th Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It served as a branch museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2016 to 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vienna porcelain</span> Defunct Austrian porcelain manufacturer

Vienna porcelain is the product of the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory, a porcelain manufacturer in Alsergrund in Vienna, Austria. It was founded in 1718 and continued until 1864.

Luke Syson is an English museum curator and art historian. Since 2019, he has been the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, prior to which he held positions at the British Museum (1991–2002), the Victoria and Albert Museum (2002–2003), the National Gallery (2003–2012) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2015–2019). In 2011 he curated the acclaimed Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery: Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, which included his pivotal role in the controversial authentication by the National Gallery of da Vinci's Salvator Mundi.

Xavier F. Salomon is a British art historian, critic, curator, and museum director. He is currently the Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator at the Frick Collection in New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">945 Madison Avenue</span> Museum building in New York City

945 Madison Avenue, also known as the Breuer Building, is a museum building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The Marcel Breuer-designed structure was built to house the Whitney Museum of American Art; it subsequently held a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and from 2021 to March 2024 was the temporary quarters of the Frick Collection while the Henry Clay Frick House was being renovated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Axel Rüger</span> German art historian, curator and museum director

Axel Rüger is a German art historian, curator and museum director. Since 2019 he has led the Royal Academy of Arts in London and in spring 2025 will assume the directorship of the Frick Collection in New York. Previously, he served as director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam between 2006 and 2019, and worked as a curator of Dutch art at the National Gallery in London.

References

  1. ↑ Brown, Mark (4 February 2014). "Frick Collection Masterpieces on Show at the Mauritshuis in The Hague". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  2. ↑ Pogrebin, Robin (January 3, 2024). "Frick Leader to Step Down After a 14-Year Run". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  3. ↑ "Directing the Frick". www.brownalumnimagazine.com. Retrieved 2024-12-04.
  4. ↑ Taylor, Kate; Vogel, Carol (May 19, 2011). "The Frick Collection Names a New Director". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  5. ↑ Salerno, Heather (January 6, 2016). "Directing the Frick". Brown Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  6. ↑ "France Honors Ian Wardropper". French Culture. June 10, 2013.
  7. ↑ Catton, Pia (March 24, 2016). "Once Rebuffed, Frick Collection Restarts Its Expansion Push". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
  8. ↑ Farago, Jason (25 February 2021). "The Frick Savors the Opulence of Emptiness". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  9. ↑ "Full Program of Symposium "Holland's Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals" at The Frick Collection in New York Announced". CODART. 8 April 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  10. ↑ Vázquez, Inge Reist (13 January 2021). "Collecting Spanish Art". The Frick Collection. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  11. ↑ Wardropper, Ian (July 18, 2024). "The Frick Renewed". YouTube. Newport Mansions.
  12. ↑ Wachs, Audrey (May 25, 2018). "AN takes a deep dive into Frick Collection expansion plans". The Architect's Newspaper.
  13. ↑ Kinsella, Eileen (January 3, 2024). "The Frick's Longtime Director Ian Wardropper Will Step Down in 2025". Artnet News. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
  14. ↑ Pogrebin, Robin (January 3, 2024). "Frick Art Museum Makes Historic Wardropper Appointment". The New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.