Brooklyn Museum To Welcome Anne Pasternak As New Director

Come the end of June, Brooklyn Museum director Arnold Lehman will be retired, beginning the transition process to Anne Pasternak, who will officially take over the reins of one of the city’s most prominent arts institutions on September 1.

Pasternak, 50, is currently the president and artistic director of New York-based arts organization Creative Time — an “arts organization that stages free projects, exhibitions and events at public sites throughout New York,” including last year’s giant Kara Walker sculpture at the Domino Sugar Factory — and her appointment caps a months-long search process for Lehman’s replacement.

Lehman, 70, announced last year his intention to retire from the role he has filled since 1997:

“We can learn the technology, but it’s another thing to live it,” said Mr. Lehman. “The younger generation is steeped in it.”

[He] said he wants to go out while he’s still on top. “I would put my energy level up against any 28-year-old’s now, but I don’t know if that will be the case in five or 10 years,” Mr. Lehman said.

Praise for Lehman came from across the city, including Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who described Lehman as “a visionary champion of diversity, community engagement, and groundbreaking expression.”

“His leadership is an incredible mantle to take on, so I am pleased to see the Museum’s selection of Anne Pasternak as its new director, a woman with her own impressive legacy of bringing innovative public art to the masses,” Adams said.

“Anne Pasternak is a fantastic leader who will expand upon the extraordinary growth the Brooklyn Museum has achieved during Arnold Lehman’s tenure,” Brooklyn Museum Board of Trustees Chairperson Elizabeth Sackler said in a statement. “Pairing Anne’s talents with the depth and breadth of the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection — one of the richest and most expansive collections in the country — will bring the Museum to new heights.”

For her part, Pasternak told the New York Times that she considers her new job with the Brooklyn Museum to be a fantasy come true.

“If there was one job I fantasized about, it was being director of the Brooklyn Museum.” She added: “My mother is from Flatbush, and I grew up hearing stories about her weekend visits to the museum. I also know many contemporary artists who had their first art classes at the Brooklyn Museum. So this connection feels both personal and historical.”

Pasternak’s appointment is also notable for making her one of the first women to head a a large New York City art museum — its collection is the second largest, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And while she has never actually held a job in a museum, she has worked in productive partnership with many government and civic agencies, cultural institutions, and community groups, as as the Times notes, she’s done her fair share of programming and, perhaps sometimes more essential to the job, fundraising.