Cleveland Museum of Art names Deborah Gribbon interim director
by Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer
Thursday August 13, 2009, 6:06 PM

Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times
Next month, Deborah Gribbon will take over for Timothy Rub as interim director of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

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The Cleveland Museum of Art announced today that it has appointed Deborah Gribbon, former director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, to serve as interim director starting Monday, Sept. 21.

Gribbon will succeed current director Timothy Rub, who rocked the museum in June by announcing he would leave next month after three years -- a short tenure by museum standards -- to head the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Cleveland museum trustees said they hoped Gribbon's appointment would communicate stability and momentum as the museum nears a critical decision in December about whether to continue with a $350 million expansion and renovation, now half-finished.

"I'm really so excited I can hardly contain myself," said Michael Horvitz, co-chairman of the museum's board, who spearheaded the effort to lure Gribbon, 61, out of retirement. "This is exactly the right thing for the institution at this point."

Alfred Rankin Jr., president of the museum's board, said Gribbon's appointment "will reinforce the sense we're on the right course" as the museum evaluates the next stage of its expansion, designed by architect Rafael Vinoly.

The museum also announced it has launched a formal search for a new director to succeed Rub. Museum trustees hope to name a new permanent director within a year, which is roughly how long Gribbon has agreed to stay.

Phillips Oppenheim, an executive search firm in New York, has been named to lead the search.

Speaking from her vacation house in Castine, Me., Gribbon said, "I'm thrilled, I'm truly excited" about coming to Cleveland.

She said she became convinced, after visiting the museum quietly in mid-July and studying its expansion project and finances, that she could work smoothly with trustees to provide the leadership it needs now and help the institution find a new permanent director.

"The Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the top museums in the country, and this is an opportunity that doesn't come along very often in life," she said. "I feel very fortunate to be able to do this."

She called the plans for the museum's expansion project "uplifting and magical."

Gribbon said her salary at the Cleveland museum will be comparable to that of Rub, who agreed to reduce his pay from $400,000 to $340,000 in May as part of a cost-cutting program.


A veteran curator and director with a reputation for integrity and solid management, Gribbon spent most of her career at the Getty, America's wealthiest art museum.

Gribbon holds doctoral and master's degrees in art history from Harvard University. After working as a curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, she joined the Getty in 1984.

Rising through the curatorial ranks, she helped expand the Getty's widely admired collection and helped guide the program for the $1 billion Getty Center, designed by architect Richard Meier, which opened in 1997.

In 2000, Gribbon was named director of the Getty, succeeding John Walsh. She stepped down in the fall of 2004 over differences with Barry Munitz, then president and chief executive officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which oversees the museum and other divisions of the Getty Center.

Gribbon's departure was interpreted widely in the press as a principled stand against second-guessing by higher-ups in the Getty organization. As she left her office on her last day at work, the museum staff gave her a standing ovation.

In 2006, Munitz resigned under pressure during an investigation by the California attorney general's office into alleged improper use of his expense account. Munitz paid $250,000 in fines to the trust and had to forgo a $2 million severance package, according to news accounts.

Gribbon declined to expand on her previous public statements about her departure from the Getty.

Gribbon led the Getty during the years in which authorities in Italy began negotiating for the restitution of objects it said were looted from archaeological sites or handled by traffickers.

She said she has not been called as a witness in the Rome trial in which former Getty curator Marion True stands accused of collaborating with smugglers.

The Getty has agreed to return 40 objects to Italy, a decision Gribbon said was handled "very well" by her successor, current Getty director Michael Brand.

Since leaving the Getty, Gribbon said she has spent time enjoying retirement and caring for her parents, who lived in Washington, D.C., until their deaths in 2005. She is married to Winston Alt, a Los Angeles psychiatrist, and has two daughters, Sarah Alt, 24, and Jane Alt, 21.

Gribbon said she'll spend a solid month in Cleveland starting Monday, Sept. 14, and will then take short breaks to visit Los Angeles.

One reason Cleveland museum trustees have rushed to appoint Gribbon is that they want her in place before Rub leaves on Sept. 21, so the two can work together on a seamless transition.

Rub said today he thoroughly approves of the idea.

"It's rare that somebody in my position has the opportunity to work with the interim leadership that will come after I leave, to effect as smooth a transition as possible," Rub said.

He called Gribbon "a seasoned professional" who is "widely admired in the field."

Rub's decision to leave the Cleveland museum jolted the institution's trustees and the community in June, in part because it followed immediately after the museum celebrated the opening of its new East Wing, which houses collections of 19th-century, modern and contemporary art.

not out of dissatisfaction, but because he has a deep personal attachment to the Philadelphia collection, which is strong in modern art, his passion.

The Philadelphia job became open only because of the untimely death a year ago of the museum's admired former director, Anne d'Harnoncourt.

Horvitz and Rankin said they wanted to move quickly to provide interim leadership but were convinced that they couldn't promote an interim director from within.

They also did not want a committee of three administrators to run the museum, which is how the museum operated between the retirement of former director Katharine Reid in 2005 and Rub's appointment in 2006.

Horvitz said he placed his first call to Gribbon on June 29, the very day Rub announced his decision to go to Philadelphia.

"I can tell you they were on it," Gribbon said. "They were right on it."

And now, after a brief courtship, she's ready to get to work in Cleveland.

"I'm not only ready, I'm geared up," she said. "I'm really up for this."