The Walters Art Museum will be led by two interim co-directors during the transitional period following the previously-announced departure of Julia Marciari-Alexander, the Andrea B. and John H. Laporte Director.
The Board of Trustees of the Walters Art Museum announced on Wednesday that Dr. Gina Borromeo, Senior Director of Collections and Curatorial Affairs & Senior Curator of Ancient Art, and Michelle RhodesBrown, Chief Financial Officer, will together lead the museum during the transitional period.
The museum announced last month that Marciari-Alexander, who has served as Executive Director and CEO since 2013, was appointed the President of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in New York. It said that Marciari-Alexander will remain at the Walters until September 2024 to support the board and its leadership team.
“Through their combined seven years on the Leadership Team at the Walters, Gina and Michelle have both proven their dedication to the continued success of the museum through their execution of its strategic plan, DEAI initiatives, and collections management,” said Peter L. Bain, President of the Walters Board of Trustees, in a statement. “I am confident in their ability to lead the museum during this transitional period as we search for the next Executive Director of the Walters Art Museum.”
RhodesBrown joined the Walters in 2019 and has shepherded initiatives with museum-wide impact, including the creation of the compensation strategy implemented in 2023 that provided full and part time employees an average salary increase of 13% across the institution and a new starting base wage of $17 for all hourly employees. RhodesBrown also aided in guiding the museum through the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing the museum to retain all staff and avoid furloughs and layoffs.
Borromeo joined the Walters in 2022 after 27 years at the Rhode Island School of Design, where, since 2020, she served as Chief Curator and Curator of Ancient Art. At the Walters, Borromeo has been instrumental in overseeing the museum’s important curatorial, conservation, technical research, and collections departments, bringing with her an expertise in provenance research and ancient art.
The Walters Search Committee will be chaired by trustee Sheila Vidmar, with trustees Peter L. Bain, Laura Banes, Andre Davis, Guy E. Flynn, Harry Gruner, and Alex Nuñez also serving. The committee has retained Russell Reynolds Associates, a leading executive search firm, to aid in finding a successor to Marciari-Alexander.
“The Walters has accomplished so much in its 90 years, but the work to be done for the museum’s diverse and engaged community continues to expand and evolve,” Vidmar said in a statement. “The museum has been fortunate to have a wealth of accomplished leaders over its many years serving Baltimore, and we will be endeavoring to find in our next executive director someone who can continue to move forward this great organization into the next 90 years with enthusiasm and vision.”
Michelle RhodesBrown joined the Walters Art Museum in 2019. Prior to her appointment as the National Finance Chair at Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Michelle led strategic revisions to the budgeting and event registration processes that enhanced operational efficiency and financial viability. She has held roles as a Senior Investment Analyst at Biegel Waller Investment Advisory Services, Investor Relations Manager at lntegra LifeSciences, and ascending roles at Profit Investment Management. In each of these organizations, she honed her expertise in investment analysis, investor relations, and portfolio management. In addition, RhodesBrown serves on a number of boards, including the CareFirst of Maryland. Inc, Maryland State Retirement & Pension Board, and the Pension Oversight Commission in Howard County, MD.
Dr. Gina Borromeo joined the Walters Art Museum in 2022. Previously, she was at the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where since 2003 she served as Curator of Ancient Art and then as Chief Curator and Curator of Ancient Art, managing and interpreting its Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman collections. During her tenure at RISD, she planned and directed the reinstallation of the Greek and Roman galleries and the Egyptian galleries, and curated the exhibitions Rethinking the Romans: New Views of Ancient Sculpture, Dig the Museum, and Made for Eternity, and co-curated the interdepartmental exhibition entitled Being and Believing in the Natural World. Borromeo has served on the Museums and Exhibitions Committee of the Archaeological Institute of America and on the Council of the Association of Art Museum Curators. She has also served on the Boards of the Humanities Forum of Rhode Island, the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, the latter two at Brown University.
