Guest lecturer and dessert reception hosted by the Harn Museum on Sept. 28

September 27, 2007

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Harn Museum of Art is hosting a lecture by Maxwell L. Anderson, director of The Melvin & Bren Simon and CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, at 11 a.m. on Sept. 28 as part of its contribution to the University of Florida-wide Capital Campaign kick-off event, “Showcasing the Possibilities.”

Visitors are invited to attend a dessert reception from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. Harn Museum University Student Educators (MUSEs) will guide museum guests to curator gallery talks from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., featuring 30-minute gallery talks by Harn curators in their respective galleries, including “Photographic Formalities: From Ansel Adams to Weegeee,” which opens Sept. 28 in the Harn’s exhibition hall. Also from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., the Goforth Learning Center will feature art-making demonstrations in collaboration with Harn adult and children studio classes.

Maxwell Anderson, whose lecture is titled “Culture as a Catalyst: Rethinking Tomorrow’s Museums,” has been at the Indianapolis Museum of Art since May 2006. Along with a $380 million endowment, 152 acres of grounds, 325 staff members and an encyclopedic collection of 54,000 works of art, the IMA has the 5th largest art museum facility (667,000 sq. ft.) in the United States. Prior to joining the IMA, he was director of Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum from 1987-1995, director of Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario from 1995-98 and director of the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1998-2003. In September 2003 Anderson became a Leadership Fellow at Yale University’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute for the academic year 2003-2004. From 2004-2006 he was a principal with AEA Consulting of New York and London, specializing in planning for the cultural sector.

Anderson received an A.B. from Dartmouth in 1977 with highest distinction in Art History, and A.M. (1978) and Ph.D. (1981) degrees from Harvard, having spent 1979-1980 abroad as Harvard’s Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellow. He is the author of dozens of articles and monographs on art and museums.

Admission to the Harn Museum is free. For more information visit www.harn.ufl.edu or call 352-392-9826.