Anne d’Harnoncourt, chief executive of the Philadelphia Museum, died this morning unexpectedly. The New York Times called d’Harnoncourt “one of the art world’s most influential women.” She was 64.
D’Harnoncourt had risen from the museum’s curatorial ranks to become, in 1996, its chief executive. Lee Rosenbaum, who pens the CultureGrrl blog for Arts Journal, called d’Harnoncourt “a woman of grace, great distinction, contagious enthusiasm and, above all, warmth. A tremendous loss to the city to which she was a heroine, and to the art world for which she was a role model.”
The Philadelphia Museum’s relationship with the Walker manifested most recently in the Frida Kahlo exhibition, which just left Philadelphia on its way to San Francisco.