Smithsonian American Art Museum Names a New Director | UNW

One of the four leadership vacancies at the Smithsonian Institution’s 21 museums was filled on Tuesday when Lynda Roscoe Hartigan was named the director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.

Hartigan, the executive director and chief executive of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., is returning to the American Art Museum after having served as its chief curator. She will begin as its director on Sept. 8.

The museum has one the nation’s largest collections of New Deal art, along with leading examples of contemporary craft, American Impressionist paintings and Gilded Age masterworks. In a statement, Hartigan called the museum and its Renwick Gallery “a place where art encourages meaningful dialogue and connection,” and said she was “honored to help shape the museum’s next chapters.”

Hartigan succeeds Jane Carpenter-Rock, who has served as the museum’s acting director since September 2024. Carpenter-Rock will become the deputy director for museum content and outreach.

In a statement, Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, called Hartigan “a visionary leader” who “returns with deep curatorial knowledge and substantial experience that will guide the museum in the years ahead.”

At the Peabody, Hartigan oversaw the installation of a new wing and the expansion of the museum’s exhibition program to include photography, American art, contemporary art and global fashion. She previously worked at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto as the deputy director for collections and research and as its first chief innovation officer.

As the Trump administration has scrutinized the Smithsonian Institution, several leaders of the organization’s museums have left their posts. With Hartigan’s appointment, the three museums still without a director are the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Women’s History Museum.

This month, the director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Melissa Chiu, said that in September she would leave for a new role as the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.