Doreen Bolger

Doreen Bolger, Director of The Baltimore Museum of Art since 1998, has led the Museum through a Strategic Plan that redefined its artistic focus as 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art; placed greater emphasis on the Museum’s renowned art collections; initiated a series of high profile BMA-organized scholarly exhibitions that have traveled nationally; made a renewed commitment to arts education and community engagement; and launched an ambitious endowment and capital campaign to secure the Museum’s future and ensure its vibrancy and relevancy for generations to come. Ms. Bolger is currently leading a $24.5 million three-year phased renovation that includes dynamic new presentations of three major art collections—Contemporary, American, and African; improvements to the East Lobby; and upgrades to essential infrastructure that will improve care for the 90,000 works of art in the BMA’s collection. The entire renovation will be completed in 2014 during the Museum’s 100th anniversary.

Ms. Bolger also plays a leadership role in the region’s cultural community, serving as Vice Chair of Maryland Citizens for the Arts, and on the boards of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, Art on Purpose, Charles Street Development Corporation, Design Center Baltimore, and Station North Arts & Entertainment, Inc. She is co-chair of the Host Committee for AAM’s 2013 Annual Meeting in Baltimore, a member of Baltimore’s Cultural Tourism Advisory Committee, and an adjunct professor in the History of Art Department at The Johns Hopkins University.

Previously, Ms. Bolger served as Director of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design. She had a long curatorial career, first at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and then at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. With a Ph.D. in Art History from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, she has published extensively on American painting, drawings, and decorative arts.