Rebekah Beaulieu To Lead Florence Griswold Museum

Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme has named Rebekah (Becky) Beaulieu as its new director, effective Feb. 19. She will succeed Jeff Andersen, who has led the museum, dubbed the Home of American Impressionism, for 41 years.

Beaulieu is associate director of Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine. She also was the first executive director of Winchester (Mass.) Historical Society, which administers the Sanborn House Historical and Cultural Center, and is a trustee for the Pejepscot Historical Society in Brunswick, Maine.

In addition to being an art museum, the FloGris is a National Historic Landmark. Griswold’s 1817 house on the property was the boarding house of the Lyme Art Colony.

Beaulieu, who was born in New Hampshire and raised in Milwaukee, said she will live in Old Saybrook. Her husband, an archivist with Maine Historical Society, will join her when he is done with his current project.

She said she became interested in the FloGris in 2016, when a New England Museum Association conference was held in Mystic. “I was blown away by it. It’s beautiful. The Griswold is in an incredible location, such a high-functioning museum,” she said.

Beaulieu holds a bachelor’s degree in American studies from George Washington University, a master’s in art history and museum studies from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a master’s in arts administration from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in American and New England studies from Boston University.

flogris.org.