Malcolm Rogers (curator)

Malcolm A. Rogers, CBE (born October 3, 1948 in Scarborough) is an English art historian who served as the Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1994 through 2015. An expert on portraiture, Rogers has published extensively on the subject.

Career

A native of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Rogers was educated at Oakham School and later went on to receive degrees from Magdalen College, and Christ Church of the University of Oxford, where he earned a B.A. with first class honors and a D.Phil. in English.

Rogers served as deputy director at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and in 1994, he was appointed the Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he remained until being replaced by Matthew Teitelbaum in 2015.

A year after his appointment as director, Rogers undertook many building renovation projects including the openings of the museum's historic side entrances, which had been previously inaccessible. In addition, Rogers eliminated admission fees for children aged seventeen and under, and instituted a series of free public days.

In 1999, Rogers helped launch the Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Nagoya, Japan as a sister museum in order to internationalize the museum's brand.

Rogers led the fundraising campaign that raised over $500 million to build a new wing for the museum's American art collection, which was completed in 2008. The wing was designed by the London-based architecture firm of Foster and Partners. In 2010, a glass-enclosed courtyard was built adjacent to the new wing.

Controversies

Rogers has been criticized during his tenure at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for his large salary and benefits packages that he receives as director. In 2013, it was reported that he received a total compensation of over $900,000 including a housing allowance of over $60,000.^[1]

In addition, Rogers has been criticized for firing two long-term curators in 1999, namely Jonathan Leo Fairbanks (28-year tenure) and Anne Poulet (20-year tenure), which also led other senior curators such as Theodore Stebbins (22-year tenure) to resign from their posts.

In 2003, Roger's decision to lend of twenty-one Monet paintings to the Bellagio resort in Las Vegas in exchange for $1 million also caused signifcant controversy.^[2]

Honors

• Order of the British Empire, United Kingdom (2004)
• Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (2007)
• Commendatore, Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Italy (2008)
• Order of Isabella the Catholic, Spain (2010)

References

External links

• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston profile