More exiting museum director

Guggenheim Museum director Lisa Dennison has announced that she will resign from the museum to join Sotheby's this month. After 29 years with the Guggenheim, including nearly two years as director, Dennison will be the auction house's vice president of North American operations.

Timothy Potts resigns as director of the Kimbell Art Museum, effective Sept. 1. Potts led the museum for almost nine years, during which time it acquired a number of important works, including examples by Donatello, Bernini and Lucas Cranach the Elder. The museum has also just embarked on an expansion, designed by Renzo Piano.

Jay Gates, director for nine years of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., has decided to step down in 2008. During his tenure, the museum raised $30 million and completed a 30,000-square-foot expansion that doubled its size.

John R. Lane, director of the Dallas Museum of Art since 1999, will retire in May 2008. In addition to boosting the museum's endowment by $166.8 million and increasing attendance from 400,000 to 600,000 a year, he secured a bequest of more than 900 contemporary artworks from a group of local collectors. Lane will be succeeded by Bonnie Pitman, who has been deputy director since 2000. She has been spearheading the creation of the DMA's Center for Creative Connections, a new 12,000-square-foot educational facility opening in spring 2008.

Jessie Otto Hite, for 15 years director of the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, has announced her retirement, effective March 2008. Under her leadership, the museum constructed its new home, which opened in 2006, and added 7,000 works to its holdings, including the Michener, Suida-Manning and Leo Steinberg collections.

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