Thomas J. Loughman, associate director of program and planning at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., has been appointed the 11th director and CEO of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, it was announced Thursday.
The current director, Susan Lubowsky Talbott, announced her retirement a year ago, on Dec. 19, 2014. Loughman, 44, who was introduced to the Atheneum staff on Thursday, will assume his duties at the nation’s oldest public art museum on Feb. 1.
Henry “Hank” Martin, the new president of the Atheneum board of trustees, said Loughman was chosen from a field of 80 candidates, and was the only one of the three finalists who had never been director of a museum.
Martin said that with the $33 million renovation recently unveiled, “the thing we need now is visionary programming.” He also praised Loughman’s fundraising prowess and said he was impressed by Loughman’s experience at the Clark, “which is about double our size, in budget, endowment and visitation.”
The Atheneum has an annual budget of $9.4 million, an endowment of about $100 million and the 2015 attendance so far is 104,000, Martin said. “But those numbers are artificially depressed because, in the most recent year, so many of our galleries were closed,” he said
Martin would not reveal Loughman’s salary. Loughman was hired in a renewable, multi-year contract. He will supervise a staff of 48 full-time and 28 part-time employees.
As director of the Atheneum, Loughman was preceded, in order, by Frank Gay, Arthur Everett “Chick” Austin Jr., Charles Cunningham, James Elliott, Tray Atkinson, Patrick McCaughey, Peter Sutton, Kate Sellers, Willard Holmes and Talbott.
Loughman has a distinct memory of one of those directors.
“I was a grad student in the Clark/Williams grad program. The director, David Brooke, brought me down to spend the day with Patrick McCaughey. It was in 1994,” he said. “Patrick was just so proud. They had just reinstalled the silver,” referring to the Elizabeth B. Miles English Silver Collection.
“It left an impression on me early on,” he said. “It feels marvelous to be reconnecting with that institution at a similar moment, with such a recasting of the collection and the galleries.”
Loughman has been at the Clark since 2008. Before that, he was curator of European Art and the assistant to the director for exhibitions at the Phoenix (Ariz.) Art Museum; and a National Endowment for the Arts curatorial fellow in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. He also has taught at Penn State and has held a variety of positions at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Mass., and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
At the Clark, he is credited with spearheading the museum’s first international touring exhibit, “Great French Paintings from the Clark,” which drew more than 3.5 million visitors at 11 sites in Europe, North America and Asia and led to relationships with several international museums. Loughman also researched the historical record of Clark founder Sterling Clark’s 1908 expedition through China. This project led to exhibits of Chinese artifacts, and Clark also helped with an exchange program to train Chinese museum professionals in the United States.
Loughman has a Ph.D. in art history from Rutgers University, a master’s in the history of art from the Clark/Williams College Graduate Program and an A.B. from Georgetown University. He is a Fulbright Fellow, among other fellowships.
Loughman didn’t say much about what his dream projects or long- and short-term plans are, but he said that his first priority is getting to know the community.
“The short term is all about listening. That’s the big message both inside the building and in the community,” he said. “There’s a lot for me to learn and a lot of people to meet with. There are a lot of things to consider and plan for, not least of which is connecting with our colleagues and partners and neighbors in the core of town, UConn, the city and state government, colleague institutions whether it’s in the performing arts or in the historical society, the Twain House, etc.”
Loughman said he already has spoken, individually and in groups, with the curators to hear their ideas for future projects. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that yet,” he said.
The CEO search committee was co-chaired by Martin and Susan A. Rottner and included 10 other trustees: Duffield Ashmead IV, Jeffrey N. Brown, Susan R. Chandler, Cheryl A. Chase, David W. Dangremond, Michael Klein, Thomas A. McEachin, William R. Peelle Jr., Matthew A. Schaefer and Karen Cronin Wheat. The committee was aided by executive search firm Korn Ferry.
Loughman is a native of Morristown, N.J. He met his wife, Sara, while they were both working at the Philadelphia museum. Sara Loughman, a native of Philadelphia, is the exhibition and program manager at the Williams College Museum of Art.
Loughman said that he will move to the Hartford area in February but that Sara will stay in Williamstown with their daughters Anna, 10, and Cate, 8, until the end of the school year. Loughman said Sara plans to be a stay-at-home mom and focus on community activities.
Loughman said he and Sara have not done much house-hunting yet.
“We will be informed by our kids’ point of view,” he said. “Williamstown is such a small town, a village of only a few thousand people. … Williamstown is the only home they’ve ever known.”
Editor’s note: This version was updated from a previous version of the story to correct the spelling of David Brooke’s name.
