Douglas Druick, a curator at The Art Institute of Chicago, was named president of the prestigious facility after serving as interim president following the departure of James Cuno in June.
Druick is known as a European art expert. His choice was heralded by the city’s leading newspaper, The Chicago Tribune.
Harold Joachim, the world-renowned curator of prints and drawings at the institute speculated that Druick might one day replace him and that was 30 years ago, the newspaper noted.
Back then Druick, was the head of European and American prints at the National Gallery of Canada in Ontario.
“Two years after Joachim’s death in 1983, Druick did succeed him,” the newspaper wrote, noting his 26-year career at the museum.
“Last week he became the institute’s president and director. That is the way such things are supposed to happen, for then as now, the choice simply could not have been better,” the paper said.
Tom Pritzker, chairman of the Art Institute’s board of trustees, called Druick “one of the leading curators in the world”
“His contributions over more than two decades have been immeasurably important to the development and presentations of the collections as well as the exhibitions at the museum,” he added.
Druick, 66, holds degrees from Yale University and has chaired two of the museum’s 11 curatorial departments.
He conceived and organized exhibitions on Degas, Redon, Caillebotte, Van Gogh and Gauguin, Manet, Seurat, Cezanne and Picasso and Jasper Johns.
Druick is currently chair of both the Department of Prints and Drawings and the Department of Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture.
Druick has deep knowledge of the institution and is said to be popular with the staff, according to the Chicago Reader, an alternative newspaper.
Cuno left to head the Getty Trust in Los Angeles.
He oversaw the opening of the Art Institute’s $300 million Modern Wing in 2009.
The Renzo Piano-designed expansion made the Art Institute the second-largest art museum in the United States.
