Suzanne Delehanty NEW BRUNSWICK — Suzanne Delehanty, founding director of the Miami Art Museum and head of an independent arts consultant service, has been named director of the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University.
Delehanty became directorelect on Jan. 1 and will assume the full directorship of the museum on April 1. She succeeds Marti Mayo, who was interim director since last January, and Gregory Perry, who was director for 4½ years.
The appointment follows a national search and consultation with arts scholars, professionals and administrators from the university and nationally.
An internationally known museum leader, Delehanty’s 10-year appointment at the Miami Art Museum (MAM) led to the transformation of what was the Center for the Fine Arts, a noncollecting space, into Miami’s flagship art museum. At MAM, she established a collection of international art of the 20th and 21st centuries, developed extensive educational outreach to the community, and secured a waterfront site and funds for an expanded new facility.
She previously served as the director of the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, from 1989-93; the Neuberger Museum at the State University of New York at Purchase, from 1978-88; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1971-78. Her firm, Suzanne Delehanty LLC, provides strategic planning and management for initiatives that bring together art, artists and communities.
“I am extremely pleased that Suzanne Delehanty will bring her considerable experience to the Zimmerli and to Rutgers,” said Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick. “She has a track record of reaching beyond the borders of the institutions in which she has worked to bring in new audiences for art and new supporters for the museums.”
Delehanty holds a Bachelor of Arts in art history from Skidmore College and has pursued graduate studies in the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania. She has served on a number of panels for the arts, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the General Services Administration and the Texas and Florida arts councils.
The Zimmerli Art Museum houses more than 55,000 works, including the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union and rich holdings of 19th-century French prints and drawings and American art.