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Philadelphia Art Museum Taps Daniel H. Weiss as Director and CEO

Trustees turned to a former Met chief to steady an institution mired in a lawsuit after a bruising rebrand.

Overview

  • The board approved Weiss’s appointment with a unanimous vote, and he begins Dec. 1 with a mandate to guide the museum through at least 2028.
  • His selection follows the Nov. 4 firing of Sasha Suda after an outside inquiry flagged issues around her compensation, and she has since sued alleging a “sham investigation.”
  • Weiss led the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2015 to 2023, has been a humanities professor and senior arts adviser at Johns Hopkins, and recently consulted for the museum’s board.
  • The museum is dealing with backlash to a recent name and logo change, with leadership weighing whether to reverse parts of the rebrand.
  • Operational and financial pressures include a still-closed Perelman annex, a stalled east-steps expansion, deferred maintenance, an operating deficit, and visitorship that has not fully recovered.