Brian Ferriso is resigning as director of the Portland Art Museum to become director of the Dallas Museum of Art, with his Portland tenure ending after the museum's Nov. 20 unveiling and his Dallas start on Dec. 1, 2025. He led a $111 million redesign and addition including the new Rothko Pavilion and extensive remodeling of two connected buildings. Construction proceeded through the Covid years and altered the museum layout, including a new loading dock and intermittent gallery closures. He selected new curators, strengthened Indigenous collections and repatriated Tlingit pieces, established a Black art gallery with the 1803 Fund, approved major conservation work, and maintained operations through disruptions. City and business leaders view the renovations and reopening as a downtown revival. Replacement plans have not been announced.
Brian Ferriso, director of the Portland Art Museum since 2006, is resigning to become director of the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas. Oregon Public Broadcasting broke the story Friday morning, Aug. 20, citing a press release from the Dallas museum. Ferriso, who has spent the past several years guiding the Portland museum's massive, $111 million redesign and addition, will leave after the unveiling of the completed project on Nov. 20, and will take the reins in Dallas on Dec. 1, 2025.
The Portland museum's addition of its new Rothko Pavilion and its extensive remodel of its two other buildings that the Rothko Pavilion will connect has consumed much of Ferriso's energy since the first plans were unveiled in 2016. Construction has been ongoing through the Covid years, when the museum was briefly shut down, and since, with a new loading dock radically changing the layout of the museum's original building, and various galleries shut down at different times.
Along the way he's chosen several new curators, strengthened the museum's Indigenous collections and repatriated several pieces to their Tlingit homes, created a prominent new gallery for Black art in partnership with the 1803 Fund, helped guide a rethinking of the museum's Northwest art collections, green-lighted some major conservation of specific artworks including the museum's prize Monet Waterlilies, and kept the museum running, if at a reduced speed, through both Covid and construction.
Collection
[
|
...
]