Displaying items by tag: graham beal

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) will give pay raises and bonuses to three of its top executives in recognition of their work securing the museum’s collection during the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy negotiations. Former Director and President Graham Beal (who left the DIA on June 30) will get a retroactive $20,000 raise for the fiscal years 2014 and 2015, plus a $30,000 performance bonus; Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Annmarie Erickson and Chief Financial Officer Robert Bowen will receive 3% raises for the fiscal years 2014 and 2015, plus bonuses of $65,000 and $40,000, respectively.

As an erudite, witty but reserved British-born art historian who favors bow ties, Graham Beal has neither the appearance nor the personality of a natural man of the people.

Yet Beal's 16-year tenure as director of the Detroit Institute of Arts — highlighted by a landmark $158-million renovation and reinstallation of the collection — has transformed the museum into a populist institution embraced by a larger and more diverse swath of Detroiters than at any other point in its 130-year history.

Graham Beal, the Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, published a letter in the New York Times addressing the rampant rumors that have dogged the institution recently. Media outlets ran countless stories speculating about the museum’s future and that of its artworks after Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr asked for an appraisal of the D.I.A.’s collection.

In his letter, Beal specifically responded to an article published in the New York Times comparing the Detroit Institute of Arts to the shuttered Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science in California. Beal said, “True, any successful effort to liquidate D.I.A. art would precipitate a series of events likely to lead to its closing, but we are a very long way from actions that would denude its prestigious collection of its most valuable art works. We believe that a healthy D.I.A. is, in fact, a crucial component in any recovery of the city of Detroit.”

Beal’s letter can be read in its entirety at the New York Times.